Plan: The United States Federal Government should fund the creation of disease surveillance laboratories in Sub-Saharan Africa.
1 AC: Everything on the 1AC + (at the end)
The US must lead disease surveillance to ensure national security on bioweapons.
Amy Sands, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Center For Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute Of International Studies, 3-19-02 ('Reducing The Threat Of Chemical And Biological Weapons", Hearing Before The Committee On Foreign Relations United States Senate One Hundred Seventh Congress, http://www.globalsecurity.org /military/library/congress /2002_hr/shrg319.pdf , p. 48 [KSutt]
To initiate such a process, the United States should work with Europe, Japan and other like-minded states to develop the national legislation needed to prevent misuse and unauthorized access to dangerous biological agents and toxins. Using these efforts as models, the U.S. must lead the effort on an international level and with industry and academia to define international standards of safety and security in the bio-technology sector so that we will have more control over where the materials of concern are, who has access to them, how they are controlled and how they are stored and transferred. A second recommendation is that we strengthen the public health sector within the United States and internationally. We need, obviously it's been said already today, to improve our own public health sector, but we also need to work with other international groups and foreign governments to the same internationally. The proposed draft legislation of Senator Biden and Helms called the Global Disease Surveillance Act of 2002 reflects the fact that given the speed of international travel, migration patterns and commercial transportation networks, it will not be enough to shore up American public health capabilities and capacities, recognizing that the best BW delivery system might be humans either knowingly or not. Therefore we must assist others to develop capabilities for disease monitoring, surveillance and response or else leave ourselves vulnerable to the possible exposure to dangerous diseases that could be locally contained. Having recognized the need for more support in this area, the challenge, though, will now be to sustain these efforts both in the United States and elsewhere. Since these activities have dual benefits enhancing both national and international security and public health, it is hoped that their value will be clearly evident and funding will become an integral and ongoing element of our national and public security systems
HM KOLANDJIAN/NABULSI
water aff
before watkins- we're reading gleick '93- War is very real impact to water scarcity, middle east rpvoes,
after postel and wolf- reading gleick '93- water has been the targets and tool of war, wwii iraq, iran, yugoslavia and israel proves.
otherwise same as wiki.
HM REETZ/CAMERON
HM CAMERON-REETZ
RUNNING THE CLEAN WATER AFF
1AC
KEEPING INHERENCY ON THE WIKISITES WEBPAGE
KEEPINH THE DISEASE AND TERRORISM EVIDENCE ON THE WIKISITES WEBPAGE
SUPPLANTING THE WATER WARS ADVANTAGE WITH THE AGRICULTURE ADVANTAGE
CARDS TO BE READ:
WATER SCARCITY IS THE BIGGEST THREAT TO GLOBAL FOOD PRODUCTION-SANDRA POSTEL, 1999
CLEAN WATER KEY TO FIGHT POVERTY THROUGH AGRICULTURE—USAID 2007
HUNGER KILLS MILLIONS EVERY YEAR-BREAD FOR THE WORLD INSTITUTE 2004
SAME PLAN TEXT ON THE WIKISITES WEBSITE
KEEPING ALL OF THE SOLVENCY EVIDENCE ON THE WIKISITES WEBPAGE
STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE IS WORSE THAN THERMONUKE WAR-GILLIGAN EVI
MANN 98—AFF=ETHIC OF CARE
HM STACY/BHATT
WATER WARS
Our 1ac is going to be the wiki with the mann care card at the end of the aff, last card.
THE MANN 98 EVIDENCE IS THE ETHIC OF CARE EVIDENCE READ BY JOHN TURNER IN THE DEMO DEBATE
HM GRIMES/RAMSEY
WATER WARS
Same as the wiki, except with the Mann 98 card at the bottom (ETHIC OF CARE EVIDENCE READ BY JOHN TURNER IN THE PRACTICE DEBATE)
HM CHIPALKATTI/GEORGE
WATER WAR- Same affirmative as on the wiki.
HM LOTFI/SNOW
DISEASE SURVEILLANCE AFFIRMATIVE, SAME AS ON THE WIKI
HM BOXER/Chlistunoff
Water 1AC
Contention 1: Inherency
Water for the Poor Act funds are currently not reaching Sub Saharan Africans
Michael Campana, Director of Water and Watersheds at Arizona State Univesity, 5/19/2007, http://aquadoc.typepad.com/waterwired/2007/05/water_as_a_fore.html.
This post will deal with something else - the Water for the Poor Act, spearheaded by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). A recent post from Reuters-Africa described concerns by Blumenauer and other members of Congress that the Bush Administration is giving the act short shrift by not spending the money where it was intended. The act was passed in 2005 to ensure that long-term projects would provide water where it is needed most - places such as sub-Saharan Africa, which is in dire straits vis-a-vis water and will likely become worse off as the result of global warming.
Blumenauer told a hearing that the State Department and USAID misrepresented how they spent $200 million that was to be targeted to help places like sub-Saharan Africa, where Blumenauer stated that only $10 million was spent. The State Department used most of the funds for reconstruction work in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) said that a Water for the Poor act was passed, not a Water for the War act.
300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to clean water, and it is getting worse
Xinhua News Agency, 5/31/2007
Africa calls for increased funding of water resources, Lexis
African ministers in charge of water have called for increased funding in order to promote the provision, usage and management of water resources in Africa. The call was made Wednesday in Brazzaville, capital of Republic of Congo, at the start of the 6th Ordinary Session of the African Ministers' Council on Water (AMCOW), which is being attended by about 20 ministers and representatives from development partners. "Your presence here demonstrates your willingness to mobilize financial resources with a view to promoting the provision, usage and management of water resources realization of sustainable economic and social development in our countries, without forgetting the preservation of our continent's ecosystems," Republic of Congo's Prime Minister Isidore Mvouba said. Organized under the theme of "Coming together to overcome the challenges posed by water problems in Africa," the session is aimed at consolidating the actions of the AMCOW which, despite recording some progress since its inception in 2002, continues to experience difficulties in achieving its objectives. The objective of the Brazzaville meeting is to examine recommendations made by sub-regional groupings as well as by AMCOW's technical consultative committee. The mission of the attending ministers is to promote political commitment for the establishment of effective strategies for supplying and fostering rational use of water resources for the realization of sustainable development and preservation of Africa's ecosystems. The AMCOW is composed of a council of ministers, an executive committee and a technical consultative committee. Among other things, the executive committee is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the decisions of the council of ministers, elaboration of work programs and mobilization of the necessary financial resources. According to the UN 2006 human development report, more than 300 million people in Africa have no access to drinking water and 313 million people in Africa lack facilities for purifying water.
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Contention 2: Harms
Advantage 1: Diseases
Unclean water kills 3-4 million Africans a year
Geoffrey Dabelko, Director of the Environmental Change and Security Program, 6/29/2005, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, "Congressional Testimony: Water and Sanitation"
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to discuss safe water and sanitation and U.S. foreign assistance. We are all aware of the devastation wrought by HIV/AIDS on sub-Saharan Africa. However, developing countries in Africa and elsewhere face another severe crisis that demands our help. Three to four million people—using half of the hospital beds in the world—die each year from another silent killer: unsafe water. The vast majority of these victims are children, struck down by waterborne typhoid, cholera, diarrhea, and dysentery, and virtually all live in developing countries. Lack of water also impedes the social and economic development of those who survive: women and girls in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa must walk an average of six kilometers to fetch water—each way—preventing them from going to school or working outside the home. And millions more are too sick from chronic waterborne illness to attend school at all.
Children are the most affected – one child per minute dies a water related and preventable death in sub-Saharan Africa
Jim Fisher, United States Department of State, 5/17/07 “US Congress Examines Drinking Water Crisis” All Africa http://allafrica.com/stories/200705180418.html
Millions of people in Africa are stricken with preventable diseases every year because they lack what the developed world takes for granted -- clean drinking water.
The why, how and where of providing what many in the West see as the bedrock of sustainable development were examined at a May 16 hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa.
"Africa is one of the most water-impoverished regions ... and the lack of clean water claims the lives of 4,900 children every day," Subcommittee Chairman Donald Payne said.
Lack of clean water worldwide, but especially in Africa, is "a global crisis," Payne said.
Walter North, senior deputy assistant administrator for Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) agreed, adding, that the United States is working with African partners to meet U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets set to reduce by half by 2015 the number of people without access to clean water.
"More than one child in sub-Saharan Africa dies every minute from diarrheal disease -- a direct result of inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene," North said.
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Unclean water greatly worsens the condition of HIV/AIDS patients, and creates perfect conditions for the spread of HIV/AIDS as well
Thirst Relief International, 2006. “Water Supply Statistics and Facts: AIDS/HIV and Clean Drinking Water”, http://www.thirstrelief.org/facts.htm#death
The lack of clean drinking water is at the root of the African HIV/AIDS pandemic. Children and adults living with HIV/AIDS require clean drinking water to survive. Waterborne illness considered normally mild in healthy adults becomes an incurable death sentence for those affected by HIV/AIDS. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, millions of people lack access to the basic necessity of clean drinking water. In this same region, some 25 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. The result over 2 million children and adults die of HIV/AIDS annually in sub-Saharan Africa alone.
Integral to this horrible cycle, sickness and disease resulting from the consumption of contaminated drinking water destroy the strength and development of African families and communities. This leads to extreme poverty, lack of education, tremendous inequities, and greater illnesses, creating conditions ripe for the continued spread of HIV/AIDS. Caught in this downward spiral, it becomes difficult, and most cases impossible, for individuals to progress out of their terrible plight.
A rapid expansion of African AIDS causes extinction.
Michael Kibaara Muchiri, Staff Member at Ministry of Education in Nairobi; March 6, 2k “Will Annan finally put out Africa’s fires?” Jakarta Post
The executive director of UNAIDS, Peter Piot, estimated that Africa would annually need between $ 1 billion to $ 3 billion to combat the disease, but currently receives only $ 160 million a year in official assistance. World Bank President James Wolfensohn lamented that Africa was losing teachers faster than they could be replaced, and that AIDS was now more effective than war in destabilizing African countries. Statistics show that AIDS is the leading killer in sub-Saharan Africa, surpassing people killed in warfare. In 1998, 200,000 people died from armed conflicts compared to 2.2 million from AIDS. Some 33.6 million people have HIV around the world, 70 percent of them in Africa, thereby robbing countries of their most productive members and decimating entire villages. About 13 million of the 16 million people who have died of AIDS are in Africa, according to the UN. What barometer is used to proclaim a holocaust if this number is not a sure measure? There is no doubt that AIDS is the most serious threat to humankind, more serious than hurricanes, earthquakes, economic crises, capital crashes or floods. It has no cure yet. We are watching a whole continent degenerate into ghostly skeletons that finally succumb to a most excruciating, dehumanizing death. Gore said that his new initiative, if approved by the U.S. Congress, would bring U.S. contributions to fighting AIDS and other infectious diseases to $ 325 million. Does this mean that the UN Security Council and the U.S. in particular have at last decided to remember Africa? Suddenly, AIDS was seen as threat to world peace, and Gore would ask the congress to set up millions of dollars on this case. The hope is that Gore does not intend to make political capital out of this by painting the usually disagreeable Republican-controlled Congress as the bad guy and hope the buck stops on the whole of current and future U.S. governments' conscience. Maybe there is nothing left to salvage in Africa after all and this talk is about the African-American vote in November's U.S. presidential vote. Although the UN and the Security Council cannot solve all African problems, the AIDS challenge is a fundamental one in that it threatens to wipe out [humanity] man. The challenge is not one of a single continent alone because Africa cannot be quarantined. The trouble is that AIDS has no cure -- and thus even the West has stakes in the AIDS challenge. Once sub-Saharan Africa is wiped out, it shall not be long before another continent is on the brink of extinction. Sure as death, Africa's time has run out, signaling the beginning of the end of the black race and maybe the human race.
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Advantage 2: Failed States
Water shortages cause economic decline in Africa – 11 million are on the brink of death
Financial Mail (South Africa), 3/31/06, Worldwide water woes, Lexis
Water looks set to emerge as the new oil in the 21st century, as dwindling water supplies are becoming on economic drain on countries. As with so many other matters economic, the developed world is using most of the globe's resources and has access to more of it than the developing nations, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. In Africa almost 40% of the population have no access to running water or sanitation services, while that figure is less than 5% in North America, according to the World Water Council. Industrialised states under the OECD umbrella also use a huge 1550m³ of water per capita a year compared with a mere 100m³ in Africa. The economic impact of water shortages and droughts is also far greater in the developing world. The World Bank, quoted in the Financial Times, estimates for example that Kenya's GDP fell by 16% during the drought that hit the country between 1998 and 2000. The current drought in the horn of Africa threatens the survival of 11m people. The World Health Organisation estimates that the lack of access to sanitation and clean water knocks at least US$556bn/year off the world's potential growth rate - 1% of global GDP. In the developed world the impact is also felt, albeit less severe. US authorities put drought-related losses at between $6bn and $8bn/year, while agricultural losses linked to the 2003 water shortages in Europe were estimated at $13bn, says the Financial Times.
Sub-Saharan economic decline causes state failure
Jeffrey D. Sachs, director, Center for Intl Development, 2001, Washington Quarterly, the Strategic Significance of Global Inequality, Project Muse
The most comprehensive study of state failure, carried out by the State Failure Task Force established by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1994, confirms the importance of economic underpinnings to state failure. 3 The [End Page 188] task force gave formal definition to state failure (as a case of revolutionary war, ethnic war, genocides or politicides, and adverse or disruptive regime changes) and counted all cases during 1957-1994 in countries of 500,000 people or more. The Task Force identified 113 cases of state failure. Of all the explanatory variables examined, three were most significant: infant mortality rates, suggesting that overall low levels of material well-being are a significant contributor to state failure; openness of the economy, in that more economic linkages with the rest of the world diminish the chances of state failure; and democracy, with democratic countries showing less propensity to state failure than authoritarian regimes. The linkage to democracy has another strong economic aspect, however, because other research has shown strongly that the probability of a country being democratic rises significantly with its per capita income level. 4 In refinements of the basic study, the task force found that in sub-Saharan Africa, where many societies live on the edge of subsistence, temporary economic setbacks (measured as a decline in gross domestic product per capita) were significant predictors of state failure. They also found that "partial" democracies, usually in transition from authoritarian to fully democratic institutions, were particularly vulnerable to collapse. Similar conclusions have been reached in studies on African conflict, which find that poverty and slow economic growth raise the probability of conflict. 5
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Failed states in sub-Saharan Africa allow terrorist organizations to acquire and use nuclear weapons
Thomas Dempsey, Director of African Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College, April 2006, Counterterrorism In African Failed States: Challenges And Potential Solutions, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub649.pdf
Terrorist groups that are the focus of the current GWOT display the characteristics of a network organization with two very different types of cells: terrorist nodes and terrorist hubs.1 Terrorist nodes are small, closely knit local cells that actually commit terrorist acts in the areas in which they are active. Terrorist hubs provide ideological guidance, financial support, and access to resources enabling node attacks. An examination of three failed states in Sub-Saharan Africa— Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Somalia—reveals the presence of both types of cells and furnishes a context for assessing the threat they pose to the national interests of the United States and its partners. Al Qaeda established terrorist hubs in Liberia and Sierra Leone to exploit the illegal diamond trade, laundering money, and building connections with organized crime and the illegal arms trade. In Somalia, Al Qaeda and Al Ittihad Al Islami established terrorist hubs that supported terrorist operations throughout East Africa. A new organization led by Aden Hashi ’Ayro recruited terrorist nodes that executed a series of attacks on Western nongovernment organization (NGO) employees and journalists within Somalia. Analysis of these groups suggests that while the terrorist nodes in failed states pose little threat to the interests of the United States or its GWOT partners, terrorist hubs operating in the same states may be highly dangerous. The hubs observed in these three failed states were able to operate without attracting the attention or effective sanction of the United States or its allies. They funneled substantial financial resources, as well as sophisticated weaponry, to terrorist nodes operating outside the failed states in which the hubs were located. The threat posed by these hubs to U.S. national interests and to the interests of its partners is significant, and is made much more immediate by the growing risk that nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) will fall into terrorist hands. The burgeoning proliferation of nuclear weapons and the poor security of some existing nuclear stockpiles make it more likely that terrorist groups like Al Qaeda will gain access to nuclear weapons. The accelerating Iranian covert nuclear weapons program, estimated to produce a nuclear capability within as little as one year, is especially disturbing in this context.2 A failed state terrorist hub that secures access to a nuclear weapon could very conceivably place that weapon in the hands of a terrorist node in a position to threaten vital American national interests.
Lack of water yields terrorist recruitment
Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman The Millennium Water Alliance, 5/16/2007, CQ Congressional Quaterly, AFRICA’S WATER CRISIS, Lexis
Though money cannot buy happiness, the total lack of it does produce severe unhappiness. People living in extreme poverty on less than $2 a day are in that posture because of the lack of access to clean water and sanitation. Human dignity is lost and hope is non-existent. Lack of clean water leads to stagnant economies and failed states. Population growth can be a positive unless education and job opportunities are lacking as a result of lack of access to water. Uneducated and/or jobless young men with no other opportunities are primed for recruitment into terrorist cells.
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Terrorism will cause extinction.
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, Al-Ahram Political Analyst, 8/26/2004, Extinction!, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm
What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This would lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.
The plan solves terrorism by improving the perception of US presence – the US is key
Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman, The Millennium Water Alliance, and Donald M. Payne, US Representative, June 29, 2005, CQ Congressional Testimony, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HENRY J. HYDE (R-IL) HOLDS HEARING ON GLOBAL WATER CRISIS, Lexis
When we talked to them and we said to the assembled community, "We're from the U.S., our friends in America understand that water is life, and because we love them, and they along with USAID have provided the money for MWA to work in your community and provide this new water source," and I want to tell you, if everybody could have been there, the vote would have been 100 percent out of the Congress, because the people clapped, they jumped, they danced, and they screamed their support for the United States. There was no animosity. This was basic grass roots diplomacy in action. They told us later that the only time their community had seen aid before from the United States was in times of famine, but now USAID, with us, has come with water to help them produce their own crops and avoid the pangs of famine, and I could do nothing better to support this bill than give you that good report. PAYNE (?): Would the gentleman yield? (UNKNOWN): Yes. PAYNE (?): That was just the point I was trying to make earlier when I talked about the very small amount that was going into sub- Saharan Africa, and if we can show that America cares, if we show projects like this, if we show people that we do want to see their children grow up and women be free and so forth, we can prevent the 95 percent that we're spending in Iraq and the West Bank and all the rest. In other words, if we can nip the grounds for terrorism in the bud by small programs like that, then we don't have to spend the 95 percent over there.
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Advantage 3: Water Wars
Water resources are decreasing in sub Saharan Africa where conflict could spring up any time
Kevin Watkins and Anders Bertnell, International New Herald, 8/24/2006, “A Global Problem: How to Avoid War Over Water”, http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/23/opinion/edwatkins.php
Water conflicts are invariably shaped by local factors. But the sheer scale of these conflicts makes it impossible to dismiss them as isolated events. What we are dealing with is a global crisis generated by decades of gross mismanagement of water resources. The facts behind the crisis tell their own story. By 2025, more than two billion people are expected to live in countries that find it difficult or impossible to mobilize the water resources needed to meet the needs of agriculture, industry and households. Population growth, urbanization and the rapid development of manufacturing industries are relentlessly increasing demand for finite water resources. Symptoms of the resulting water stress are increasingly visible. In northern China, rivers now run dry in their lower reaches for much of the year. In parts of India, groundwater levels are falling so rapidly that from 10 percent to 20 percent of agricultural production is under threat. >From the Aral Sea in Central Asia to Lake Chad in sub-Saharan Africa, lakes are shrinking at an unprecedented rate. In effect, a large section of humanity is now living in regions where the limits of sustainable water use have been breached - and where water-based ecological systems are collapsing.
As conflicts over water grow wider and bigger, better efforts to sanitize the drinking water can reduce the competition greatly
Peter H. Gleick, Director of the Global Environment Problem, Summer 1993, “Water and Conflict”, http://www.jstor.org/view/01622889/di008143/00p0085u/0
There is a long history of water-related disputes, from conflicts over access to adequate water supplies to intentional attacks on water systems during wars. Water and water-supply systems have been the roots and instruments of war. Access to shared water supplies has been cut off for political and military reasons. Sources of water supply have been among the goals of military expansionism. And inequities in water use have been the source of regional and international frictions and tensions. These conflicts will continue—and in some places grow more intense—as growing populations demand more water for agricultural, industrial, and economic development. While various regional and international legal mechanisms exist for reducing water-related tensions, these mechanisms have never received the international support or attention necessary to resolve many conflicts over water. Indeed, there is growing evidence that existing international water law may be unable to handle the strains of ongoing and future problems.6 In addition to improving international law in this area, efforts by international aid agencies to ensure access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation can reduce the competition for limited water supplies and the economic and social impacts of widespread waterborne diseases. In regions with shared water supplies, third-party participation in resolving water disputes, either through UN agencies or regional commissions, can also effectively end conflicts.
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Water scarcity causes enough violence to threaten the socio-political status of the countries and has fueled many regional wars in Sub- Saharan Africa. These conflicts spill over and could turn into larger wars
Sandra L. Postel and Aaron T. Wolf, Sandra is the director of the Global Water Policy Project, September-October 2001,
“Dehydrating Conflict”, http://www.jstor.org/view/00157228/sp040005/04x0151u/0,
Lost amidst this perennial debate over whether there will be water wars has been a serious effort to understand precisely how and why tensions develop, beyond the simplistic cause-and-effect equation that water shortages lead to wars. First, whether or not water scarcity causes outright warfare between nations in the years ahead, it already causes enough violence and conflict within nations to threaten social and political stability. And as recent events in the Balkans and sub-Saharan Africa demonstrated, today’s civil conflicts have a nasty habit of spilling over borders and becoming tomorrow’s international wars. Second, water disputes between countries, though typically not leading to war directly, have fueled decades of regional tensions, thwarted economic development, and risked provoking larger conflicts before eventually giving way to cooperation.
African conflict will lead to nuclear war.
Jeffrey Deutsch, Political Risk Consulting and Research Firm Focusing on Russia and Eastern Europe, 11/18/02, Setting the Stage for World War III, Rabid Tiger Newsletter, http://www.rabidtigers.com/rtn/newsletterv2n9.html
The Rabid Tiger Project believes that a nuclear war is most likely to start in Africa. Civil wars in the Congo (the country formerly known as Zaire), Rwanda, Somalia and Sierra Leone, and domestic instability in Zimbabwe, Sudan and other countries, as well as occasional brushfire and other wars (thanks in part to "national" borders that cut across tribal ones) turn into a really nasty stew. We've got all too many rabid tigers and potential rabid tigers, who are willing to push the button rather than risk being seen as wishy-washy in the face of a mortal threat and overthrown. Geopolitically speaking, Africa is open range. Very few countries in Africa are beholden to any particular power. South Africa is a major exception in this respect – not to mention in that she also probably already has the Bomb. Thus, outside powers can more easily find client states there than, say, in Europe where the political lines have long since been drawn, or Asia where many of the countries (China, India, Japan) are powers unto themselves and don't need any "help," thank you. Thus, an African war can attract outside involvement very quickly. Of course, a proxy war alone may not induce the Great Powers to fight each other. But an African nuclear strike can ignite a much broader conflagration, if the other powers are interested in a fight. Certainly, such a strike would in the first place have been facilitated by outside help – financial, scientific, engineering, etc. Africa is an ocean of troubled waters, and some people love to go fishing.
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Plan: The United States federal government should appropriate new funds for the provision of non-private assistance to sub-Saharan Africa through the Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005.
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Observation 3: Solvency
Though the Water for the Poor Act made safe water an important part of US foreign assistance, under funding and limited implementation have kept the program from being fully effective
Peter Lochery, Care Water Team Leader, 5/16/07, Beyond the Status Quo: Bringing Down Barriers to Water and Sanitation Provision in Africa through Implementation of the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act, http://www.care.org/newsroom/articles/2007/05/lochery_water_testimony.pdf, Boxer
The Water for the Poor Act made the provision of safe water, sanitation, and hygiene an explicit objective of US foreign assistance and called for the State Department to develop a comprehensive strategy outlining how the US would go about expanding equitable access to water and sanitation in countries where the need is greatest. However, implementation of the Act has been limited and has not been backed by the increased appropriations required to realize the goals encompassed in it.
The passage of the Water for the Poor Act presents an opportunity around which the US can bring expertise gained through programs in other regions of the world and significantly expanded funding to bear in sub-Saharan Africa. The strategy required by the Act also helps address gaps in responding to the African water crisis. These include: designating high priority recipient countries toward which funding should be targeted; determining which of those countries are truly committed to instituting the necessary reforms and enhancing accountability to their citizens; developing a system of measurable goals, benchmarks and timetables for monitoring US foreign assistance; and coordinating assistance with other donor countries.
The Water for the Poor Act provides the infrastructure and governance programs in order to provide clean water resources to sub-Saharan African countries, which improves economic growth, and promotes gender equality, and improves sharing between countries with water resources
Olav Kjorven, State Secretary for International Development for the United Nations Development Programme, 6/29/05, Committee on International Relations, http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa22262.000/hfa22262_0.htm#0, Boxer
Chairman Hyde, Ranking Member, Mr. Lantos, Distinguished Members of the House Committee on International Relations, I would like to thank you for your invitation to speak on the important issues that the Water for the Poor Act of 2005 addresses, and welcome this opportunity to brief you on the work of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), to increase access to safe water and sanitation in developing countries
For over 40 years, UNDP has been working to support the poor across the globe to gain access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation as part of the organization's broad development agenda.
First and foremost, our experience shows that improved access to water services and improved sanitation, coupled with sound management of water resources, contributes to improved livelihoods and productivity, improved human health, higher economic growth, and gender equality. Investments in water and sanitation are strong development drivers.
There is no development possible without water, and there is no healthy ecosystem that does not depend on water for its survival. We are convinced that water is not only vital for life and essential for development, but also a priority for contributing to the achievement of all of the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs.
We ask ourselves can poverty and hunger be eradicated or maternal health improved, or child mortality reduced, or gender inequalities addressed without improved access to water and sanitation?
The answer is no. These goals cannot be met without water and sanitation, and this is one of the strongest and most important reasons why in my view the Water for the Poor Act of 2005 is so
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important.
The table at the end of my written brief provides an illustration of the critical links between water and all the other MDGs. It also includes an illustration of the link between access to water and sanitation, and gender equality, and empowerment of women.
In Yemen, for instance, with support from the UNDP, women's groups represented by the Supreme Council for Women worked with the Ministry of Planning, and in close coordination with other international agencies, to bring gender prospectus into their country's poverty reduction strategy.
However, Mr. Chairman, our experience also shows that local capacity constraints often pose a severe limitation to the achievement of the MDGs. This is where the focus of UNDP's water program lies, highly complimentary to that of UNICEF.
Through our effective water governance program, we aim to address some of the capacity constraints that exist in developing countries, to improve access to water and sanitation services.
Effective water governance provides an enabling environment through policy, legal, and institutional frameworks for sustainable, equitable, and economically efficient use and development of water resources.
This includes support to strengthen the protection and management of the water sources and catchment areas that all water supplies fundamentally depend on. We have to make sure that there is water running through the pipes that we build.
UNDP supports the development of good practice mechanisms to promote integrated management of water resources. Our experience also shows that political will and commitment, motivated with enough awareness and backed with sufficient capacity, are key elements that determine the capabilities of governments to formulate integrated water resource management plans, and not the least to implement them.
With support from UNDP, several Arab countries, including Egypt and Lebanon, have improved their national water policies and integrated water resource management plans.
With the support from the U.S. State Department, our water governance program also promotes increased cooperation between countries that share water resources, such as in the Nile, the Mekong, the Niger, and other strategic river basins.
The U.S. State Department's support to UNDP Transboundary Rivers Program is a critical element to promote peace and stability in many regions. Water is a source of tension between countries, but it can also be an entry point for collaboration.
This program is highly complimentary to the global environment facility if they are in international waters, where the entry point is to protect the ecological integrity of shared water resources.
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Ending US privatization of water is key to the success of the Water for the Poor Act. Current US policies aim at full cost recovery, which prices the water out of reach for the poor. Water funds must promote equitable access
Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of the food and water watch, 4/23/07, http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/right/poor-act, Boxer
In order to implement the Water for the Poor Act, Food & Water Watch is encouraging Congress to increase the funds available in the Development Assistance Account for FY08 by $500 million. In order to fulfill the intent of the act, these funds must be additional appropriations, earmarked for water and sanitation.
Our comment on the Department of State report is split into themes that are of priority to our mission on water. We submitted comments as part of a group lead by CARE in 2006, prior to the commission of the report.
Affordability and Cost Recovery
Your report emphasizes the need to “provide affordable and equitable access.” We could not agree more with this guiding principle and encourage the Department of State to make this a strong policy directive in the implementation of all water investments undertaken with U.S. funds.
Our research has shown that full cost recovery puts the price of water out of reach for the poor. This has particularly happened preparation for or as a result of privatization of water utilities. Most utilities in developing countries, as in the United States, do not fully recover cost, but subsidize provision. Subsidies enable utilities to provide water access to the entire community, not just those who can afford the full cost of delivery. Cost recovery, as proposed in the report, would encourage continued marginalization of poor households, particularly of women and children. U.S. funds must first and foremost promote access, not full cost recovery.
As identified by the report, the lowest cost option for extending service to the poor in urban areas is extending existing networks. To reach the poor external funds are crucial. Such funds should assist countries in providing operational subsidies that target the needs of the unserved poor. In particular, the United States should provide subsidies for free or low cost initial connections. It is furthermore crucial that U.S. funds are used to support rate structures that prioritize the needs of the poor.
Those without piped water access often purchase their water from water vendors. When cost recovery policies drive up the price of water their costs multiply. Those relying on vended water are often the poorest households. The United States should support provision of water that is affordable, in particular to those living on less than $2/day. Blueprint cost recovery policies undermine the spirit of the Water for the Poor Act.
Water 1AC
Water privatization marginalizes the poor and leads to widespread illness – ending privatization is key to solving case
Renu Mandhane, staff writer for awid, 05, “What is the Effect of Water Privatization on the Right to Water?”, Association for Women’s Rights in Development, http://www.awid.org/go.php?stid=822
Privatization has been touted by neoliberal economists as a means to streamline water delivery and make it more efficient, with the long-term benefits of reduced public debt and improved management of the national budget. The goal of privatization is usually “full cost recovery” for water service provision—meaning that the users of water bear the full cost of its delivery through payments for water. Water privatization initiatives are often a condition of the World Bank and IMF loan money received by developing countries.
Recently, the negative impact of water privatization has been chronicled in the media due to widespread protests in Bolivia and South Africa. The most serious negative impact of privatization has been a dramatic increase in the price of water, often such that marginal members of society are unable to afford water for personal use. Those who cannot afford water often turn to unsanitary sources to fulfill their needs, resulting in increased incidence of water-born disease. Even where people can afford to pay for water, there have been incidences of private corporations with low quality standards having supplied unsafe water that has lead to widespread illness.
The US has the best technology to guarantee Africa clean water
The Water for the Poor Act, 2005, “Senator Paul Simon: Water for the Poor Act of 2005”, http://www.state.gov/g/oes/rls/rpts/67447.htm
U.S. federal agencies are global leaders in many areas of biological, physical or social science and engineering and technology expertise related to water that is of great applicability around the world. In areas such as pollution prevention, satellite remote sensing, global information systems, modeling and simulation, and high-performance computing are all niches where U.S. water-related science and technology leads the world. The U.S. is also well-positioned to help countries to augment their water supplies using desalination and wastewater recycling technologies through sharing new technologies. Many of these activities are appropriate for transforming countries where institutions exist for productive science and technology partnerships. Possible countries include India, Mexico, and Pakistan.
Water 1AC
The plan solves poverty, disease, and economic growth without resorting to doctors– countries are asking for assistance
Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman, The Millennium Water Alliance, 6/29/2005, CQ Congressional Testimony, THE GLOBAL WATER CRISIS, Lexis
As a businessman, I understand the many competing needs leaders are faced with. However, if no provision is first made for clean water, I predict no country will rise out of its poverty and will always be an international burden. Without clean water, those countries will be back at a future G8 table with the same request for debt relief once again. Faced with 50% of the hospital beds of the world filled because of water related disease, 80% of premature death and sickness from bad water and huge losses of labor hours, we have a silent tsunami that buries any potential for economic development. As a humane society we want to throw every thing we have at treating the illnesses. However, we must instead vaccinate against the illness. That vaccination is clean water. Peter Agre of Johns Hopkins received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2003 for the discovery that every single cell of the human body contains a channel through which only one thing can pass and that is water. Water channels are key to such crucial activities as making the heart beat, the brain function and the limbs move. With 100 trillion cells in your body, there are one hundred trillion ways to get sick without clean water. Dr. Richard L. Garrison, Professor, University of Texas-Houston, Health Science, Department of Family Practice and Country Medicine has written a plan on a universal coverage health system. From that, I quote: "By any account, the first, most effective implementation would be the provision of pure drinking water. Therefore, LEVEL ONE of the vertically integrated healing arts is the provision of pure drinking water. This must include every individual universally, because disease in a society can radiate out from any contaminated focus. Every citizen must be made fully aware of the preciousness of this resource so that they will guard their right and their responsibility. Most people would not consider drinking water issues to be the business of the physician. However, everyone would admit upon reflection that the things considered by most folk to be appropriate to the physician are not nearly as effective at preventing or treating disease as is the provision of pure drinking water. Therefore, if drinking water is not an issue for the health system, then it must be conceded that other systems have more impact on health than does the health system. This ought not to be! Therefore, the vertically integrated healing arts should start at the drinking water level." I will be happy to provide a full copy of this paper. Adequate supplies of clean water provide a huge benefit for the whole global community as well. The SARS epidemic spread due to lack of adequate quantities of water for simple hand washing. HIV/Aids patients cannot be successfully treated without access to clean water and their caregivers are exposed as well. In the Central African Republic, there is an outbreak of a new disease called Hepatitis E. This disease is being spread through the water and has reached Chad and into Darfur. I fully encourage the passage of H.R. 1973. We must quit spending dollars to fix recurrent problems and not addressing the root cause. It is much less costly to address the problem and fix it. Not one member of Congress would be reelected if members of their district were told that there were better things to spend money on than clean water on if their constituents did not have access to clean water. The people are no different in other countries which we let languish without clean water, unable to develop and staying in squalor and forever therefore dependent on us. The Water for the Poor Act will make it a major objective of united States foreign assistance to promote good health, economic development, poverty reduction, women's empowerment and environmental sustainability by providing assistance to expand access to safe water and sanitation and improving hygiene for people around the world.
HM HUTCHINSON/PANG
OBSERVATION ONE: INHERENCY
AFRICAN DISEASE SURVEILLANE IS FRAGMENTED, CRUSHING THE ABILITY TO DETECT AND MONITOR DISEASES EFFECTIVELY
Jonathan R. Davis and Joshua Lederberg (Editors), Forum on Emerging Infections, Board on Global Health, Institute of Medicine (Authoring organization), 2001, “Emerging Infectious Diseases from the Global to the Local Perspective”, p. 52-53, http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10084
As a region, Africa is characterized by the greatest infectious disease burden and, overall, the weakest public health infrastructure among all regions in the world. Frequently, vertically oriented disease surveillance programs at the national level and above in Africa often result in too much paperwork, too many different instructions, different terminologies, too many administrators, and conflicting priorities. Streamlined communications, strengthened public health surveillance, the use of standard case definitions, criteria for minimum data requirements, and emphasis on feedback through integrated forms, as well as research and training opportunities, are among the important tools available to improve the situation. Yet, efforts to establish fully more effective public health infrastructures may take a period of years to decades.
The aim in Africa is to identify a group of priority diseases categorized as epidemic-prone diseases, diseases targeted for eradication or elimination, and other diseases of public health importance. The challenge will be to integrate surveillance and epidemic preparedness and response activities for these priority diseases, especially when there are weakened ministries of health. Bilateral and multilateral agreements, as well as partnerships with nongovernmental organizations and commercial interests, are among the means being explored to strengthen disease surveillance and response activities, to transfer epidemiological and microbiological skills, and to facilitate timely recognition of these disease outbreaks and their control. Among the promising roles provided by global disease surveillance is the integration of new technology tools in resource-poor environments, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, for the development of an early-warning system based on remotely sensed (satellite) data for Rift Valley fever surveillance.
AFRICAN SURVEILLANCE LACKS TRAINED PERSONNEL AND LAB FACILITIES.
Declan Butler, senior reporter at Nature, 3-2-06, Nature 440 pp. 6-7, “Disease Surveillance needs a revolution”
With avian flu spreading around the world at a frightening rate, scientists are welcoming an international proposal for state-of-the-art labs to monitor emerging diseases in developing countries. But they add that the bird-flu crisis has exposed glaring deficiencies that demand a radical rethink of the world's veterinary and disease-surveillance systems.
Avian flu is now endemic across large parts of Asia, and in the past few weeks has exploded across Europe and into Africa. "H5N1 has focused the spotlight of the world on disease surveillance, and it's showing up all the pimples and warts," says Bill Davenhall, who develops health mapping schemes for countries and is head of health at ESRI, a geographic information systems company in Redlands, California.
Developing countries, in particular, lack decent human-disease surveillance, and animal monitoring is often virtually nonexistent, with few basic laboratory and epidemiological resources available. "On the ground in Indonesia, there is no systematic programme at all," says Peter Roeder, a field consultant with the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "It's just a bloody mess."
It is a problem that the developed world cannot ignore, because a disease that emerges in Bangkok or Jakarta could ultimately trigger a global disaster. So researchers at the US Department of Defense have suggested setting up a network of high-tech labs in developing countries to monitor cases of infectious disease (see page 25). The labs would be modelled on the US network of infectious-disease labs, such as the naval research unit NAMRU-2 in Jakarta. But they would be funded by the international community
Such a network could vastly speed up and improve the diagnosis of viruses such as H5N1 when outbreaks occur, says Roeder. He points out that misdiagnosis of H5N1 as Newcastle disease in recent outbreaks in Nigeria and India led to long delays in control measures.
Mark Savey, an epidemiologist who heads animal health at France's food-safety agency, also welcomes the proposal, but cautions against the "mirage of technology" in surveillance. "You don't need satellites, PCR and geographic information systems to fight outbreaks," he says. The labs' top priority should be building large teams of local staff, who are familiar with the region and its practices, he argues. "If you do not have that, then surveillance will stay in the Middle Ages."
Savey recalls his trip to Russia last summer as part of a European team investigating outbreaks of avian flu. "You have a paper Michelin map; you have people who speak the language; you put red circles on outbreaks; and you use a pen and paper to compare them with things like the dates of market openings, and with how outbreaks line up with railways." Such local knowledge is crucial to interpreting data, he says. "If you don't know what the Trans-Siberian Express is like, with people cooped up for days, exchanging chickens and eggs at every stop, you would never guess that it was the Trans-Siberian that mainly spread avian flu across Russia."
Roeder agrees that the focus must be local. "No amount of setting international guidelines and publishing global action plans is going to help when you have an organization within the country that doesn't know what to do," he says
ADVANTAGE ONE: DISEASES
THE DANGER OF NEW AND REMERGING DISEASES IS GROWING—THEY QUICKLY SPREAD ACROSS BORDERS MAKING THEM DIFFICULT TO CONTAIN.
US Government Accountability Office, 9-04, “EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Review of State and Federal Disease Surveillance Efforts” [Sigrist]
Infectious diseases account for millions of deaths every year. Although the
great majority of these deaths occur in developing countries, infectious
diseases are not confined by international borders and therefore present a
substantial threat to populations in all parts of the world, including the
United States. In recent years, the threat posed by infectious diseases has
grown. New diseases, unknown in the United States just a decade ago,
such as West Nile virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS),
have emerged, and known infectious diseases once considered in decline
have reappeared with increased frequency. Furthermore, there is always
the potential for an infectious disease to develop into a widespread
outbreak—which could have significant consequences. The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that if an influenza
pandemic1 were to occur in the United States, it could cause an estimated
314,000 to 734,000 hospitalizations and 89,000 to 207,000 deaths, with
associated costs ranging from $71 to $167 billion.2 In addition to naturally
occurring infectious disease outbreaks, there is also the threat posed by
the deployment of infectious disease pathogens3 as weapons of war or
instruments of terror.
SPECIFICALLY, SUB SAHARAN AFRICA HAS BECOME AN “IDEAL INCUBATOR” FOR THESE PATHOGENS TO GROW STRONGER.
Some of the viruses are notorious, such as Ebola and HIV. Others have less familiar names: Marburg and Lassa fever. But they all have emerged in recent decades from sub-Saharan Africa, perplexing scientists and, in the case of HIV, killing millions. Africa is recognized as an ideal incubator for new pathogens: It has rapidly growing human populations and high biodiversity, along with widespread poverty, poor medical care and, in many countries, armed conflict that forces civilians to flee far from their homes. "For every virus that we know about, there are hundreds that we don't know anything about," said Dr. Dan Bausch, a professor at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine who studies Marburg, Ebola and other emerging diseases in Africa. "Most of them, we probably don't even know that they're out there." Scientists remain especially baffled by Marburg. Since 1967, the Marburg virus and its equally lethal cousin, Ebola, have killed more than 1,600 people. The latest Marburg outbreak has killed at least 277 people in Angola, hundreds of miles from where it last emerged four years ago, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "To be honest with you, I have no indication what the source is," said Dr. Pierre Formenty, the World Health Organization's senior Marburg expert, speaking from the epicenter of the outbreak, in Uige, Angola. "That was not our first priority. Now we are working on it."
SUBPOINT A: SUPERDISEASES
SEVERAL FACTORS INFLUENCE THE GROWTH AND SPREAD OF PATHOGENS- POPULATION GROWTH, CLIMATE CHANGE, DRUG RESISTANCE, LIVESTOCK HANDLING—ARE ONLY A FEW OF THE THINGS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO MUTATIONS OF DISEASES.
Researchers say West Nile may be just one example of an infectious disease whose incidence and geographic range have expanded because of human activities affecting the mosquitoes, birds, rodents and other animals that help spread the infection. Since the mid-1970's -- a time when it was widely assumed that most infectious diseases had been conquered or at least controlled -- a troubling array of previously unknown diseases has emerged, including Lyme disease, AIDS, mad cow disease, the Ebola virus, Legionnaires' disease and a host of others. In addition, old diseases like yellow fever, malaria and dengue fever have reappeared in their former haunts and spread to new areas. Some microbes, like the ones that cause tuberculosis, malaria and food poisoning, have become dangerously drug resistant. In a 2000 report, the World Health Organization identified a half-dozen factors that could affect the distribution and emergence of infectious diseases. The factors include ecological changes like those from global warming and changes in land use; human factors like population growth, migration, war, sexual behavior, intravenous drug use and overcrowding; international travel and commerce; technological and industrial factors like food processing, livestock handling and organ transplants; microbial changes like the development of antibiotic resistance; and breakdowns in public health measures like sanitation, vaccination and insect control.
THESE MUTATIONS ARE GROWING THREATENING AS DISEASES ARE BECOMING INCREASINGLY DRUG RESISTANCE.
David L Heymann and Guénaël R Rodierthe, WHO's Executive Director for Communicable Diseases, Dec. 01, The Lancet, “Hot spots in a wired world: WHO surveillance of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases”
On another front, resistance to inexpensive and effective
antimicrobial drugs has emerged and spread at an alarming
rate, raising the prospect that many common diseases could
become prohibitively expensive or impossible to treat.27 The
bacterial infections that contribute most to human disease
are also those in which emerging resistance is of most
concern: diarrhoeal diseases such as dysentery, respiratory
tract infections, including pneumococcal pneumonia and
multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, sexually transmitted
infections such as gonorrhoea, and a host of hospitalacquired
infections that are notoriously difficult and
expensive to treat. Among the major infectious diseases, the
development of resistance to drugs commonly used to treat
malaria is of particular concern, as is the emerging resistance
to anti-HIV drugs. Most alarming of all are microbes such as
Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhi that have
accumulated resistance genes to virtually all currently
available drugs and have the potential to cause untreatable
infections, thus raising the spectre of a post-antibiotic era.
Even if the pharmaceutical industry were to step up efforts
to develop new drugs immediately, current trends suggest
that some diseases may have very few and, in some cases, no
effective therapies within the next 10 years.27 Moreover, if
current trends continue, many important medical and
surgical procedures, including cancer chemotherapy, bone
marrow and organ transplantation, and hip and other joint
replacements, could no longer be undertaken out of fear that
the associated compromise of immune function might place
patients at risk of acquiring a difficult to treat and ultimately
fatal infection. Opportunistic infections in AIDS patients
would likewise become an especially difficult challenge.
EVENTUALLY THESE MUTATIONS WILL GET OUT OF CONTROL—CULMINATING IN PLANETARY EXTINCTION.
South China Morning Post 96
((Hong Kong) January 4, 1996 SECTION: Pg. 15 HEADLINE: Leading the way to a cure for AIDS BYLINE: Kavita Daswani meets a scientist working on a super vaccine to fight AIDS and more deadly viruses yet to come, l/n)
Despite the importance of the discovery of the "facilitating" cell, it is not what Dr Ben-Abraham wants to talk about. There is a much more pressing medical crisis at hand - one he believes the world must be alerted to: the possibility of a virus deadlier than HIV. If this makes Dr Ben-Abraham sound like a prophet of doom, then he makes no apology for it. AIDS, the Ebola outbreak which killed more than 100 people in Africa last year, the flu epidemic that has now affected 200,000 in the former Soviet Union - they are all, according to Dr Ben-Abraham, the "tip of the iceberg". Two decades of intensive study and research in the field of virology have convinced him of one thing: in place of natural and man-made disasters or nuclear warfare, humanity could face extinction because of a single virus, deadlier than HIV. "An airborne virus is a lively, complex and dangerous organism," he said. "It can come from a rare animal or from anywhere and can mutate constantly. If there is no cure, it affects one person and then there is a chain reaction and it is unstoppable. It is a tragedy waiting to happen." That may sound like a far-fetched plot for a Hollywood film, but Dr Ben -Abraham said history has already proven his theory. Fifteen years ago, few could have predicted the impact of AIDS on the world. Ebola has had sporadic outbreaks over the past 20 years and the only way the deadly virus - which turns internal organs into liquid - could be contained was because it was killed before it had a chance to spread. Imagine, he says, if it was closer to home: an outbreak of that scale in London, New York or Hong Kong. It could happen anytime in the next 20 years - theoretically, it could happen tomorrow. The shock of the AIDS epidemic has prompted virus experts to admit "that something new is indeed happening and that the threat of a deadly viral outbreak is imminent", said Joshua Lederberg of the Rockefeller University in New York, at a recent conference. He added that the problem was "very serious and is getting worse". Dr Ben-Abraham said: "Nature isn't benign. The survival of the human species is not a preordained evolutionary programme. Abundant sources of genetic variation exist for viruses to learn how to mutate and evade the immune system." He cites the 1968 Hong Kong flu outbreak as an example of how viruses have outsmarted human intelligence. And as new "mega-cities" are being developed in the Third World and rainforests are destroyed, disease-carrying animals and insects are forced into areas of human habitation. "This raises the very real possibility that lethal, mysterious viruses would, for the first time, infect humanity at a large scale and imperil the survival of the human race," he said.
In the volatile new milieu of emerging, adapting, and highly mobile pathogens, the best defence is good infectious disease intelligence, on a global scale, gleaned through sensitive surveillance. Surveillance systems keep the world alert to changes in the infectious disease threat and provide the background data needed to detect an unusual event, whether involving an upsurge in cases of a well-known endemic disease, the appearance of a previously unknown pathogen, or an outbreak caused by the deliberate use of a biological agent to cause harm. Because susceptibility to infectious diseases and
the opportunities for infection rapidly increase with poverty, poverty remains the variable most frequently associated with the occurrence of infectious diseases.21 Not surprisingly, outbreaks of both newly identified diseases and well-known epidemic-prone diseases occur most frequently in countries that lack the epidemiological and laboratory
capacity to detect them quickly and contain their spread (figure 2). For this reason, continuing surveillance, supported by strengthening of national capacities, is further needed to keep the international community prepared to provide assistance, in
the interest of defending global health security, whenever needed.
SUB POINT B IS RE-REMERGING DISEASES- THE FLU
[MUTATION OF THE AVIAN FLU IS INEVITABLE—IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME UNTIL IT IS AIRBORNE.
Satish Chandra, Deputy National Security Advisor of India – Center for Strategic Decision Research, 2004
[Global Security: A broader Concept for the 21st Century, 5/7, http://www.csdr.org/2004book /chandra.htm]
If the possibility of the collapse of the thermohaline circulation system is alarming, the possibility of a human-to-human transmittable bird flu pandemic is a nightmare. What makes it so frightening is the fact that it could happen at any time and that we are ill prepared to face it. At current mortality rates, it could result in the sudden death of 15 to 20 percent of mankind. The most severe health crisis in recent years in terms of numbers of deaths was the 1918–1919 influenza epidemic, which in the space of one year caused an estimated 40 million deaths worldwide. Begun in Kansas in March 1918, the epidemic spread to Europe and then to India, Australia, and New Zealand. The virulence and mortality rate of the first wave of the disease, in the spring of 1918, was only slightly above normal levels but the second wave, which began in the fall of 1918, was extraordinarily deadly, with mortality rates of 5 to 20 percent above normal levels. It is believed that the fall strain of the virus came about through genetic mutation and that the genetic structure of the virus was a form of a swine and avian influenza strain. Since 1918, the world has seen several influenza outbreaks, most notably the 1957 Asian flu outbreak and the 1968 Hong Kong flu outbreak, each of which killed a million people. While WHO now has an Influenza Surveillance Program in place as well as an Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Plan, we still need to examine the possibility of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu becoming transmittable from human to human, the outcome of such a situation, and what must be done to address the possibility. Since the end of 2003, outbreaks of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian influenza, or bird flu, have occurred in eight Asian countries, resulting in the loss of 100 million poultry birds. The implications for human health are worrisome because of the extreme pathogenic nature of this virus—it has the capability to infect humans and cause severe illness, with mortality rates of 60 to 70 percent. It has already infected humans three times in the recent past: In 1997 and 2003 in Hong Kong and in 2004 in Vietnam and Thailand. So far the disease has been transmitted only to humans who came in contact with dead or diseased poultry—it has not yet mutated to being capable of human-to-human transmission. The Likelihood of a Pandemic Since the H5N1 strain has not been eliminated from its avian hosts, it is obviously endemic. The risk, therefore, that the virus could take on a new form that would make it capable of human-to- human transmission is considerable, especially because mass vaccinations of chickens, aimed at mitigating the disaster facing poultry farmers, has allowed the virus to continue to circulate among the vaccinated birds. It can thus linger indefinitely in poultry, making the gene mutation required to make it transmittable from human to human an even greater possibility. It could be said that there are three prerequisites for the start of a pandemic: 1) a new virus must emerge against which the general population has little or no immunity; 2) the new virus must be able to replicate in humans and cause disease; and 3) the new virus must be efficiently transmitted from one human to another. Dr. Anarji Asamoa Baah, Assistant Director General, Communicable Diseases, WHO, asserts that, regarding H5N1, the first two prerequisites have already been met, and it is known that the virus can become more transmittable via two mechanisms, “adaptive mutation” and “genetic re-assortment.” Dr. Baah has further contended that re-assortment of H5N1 with a human influenza virus can take place in humans without prior adaptation in other species such as swine. It is clear, therefore, that 1) the H5N1 virus will continue to circulate for a very long time in poultry birds; 2) the threat to public health will be there as long as the virus continues to circulate in poultry birds; 3) should the virus become transmittable from human to human, the consequences for human health worldwide, in the words of Dr. Baah, “could be devastating;” and 4) the world needs to be prepared to respond to the next influenza outbreak. During an Influenza Pandemic Preparedness meeting in Geneva in March 2004, the head of the World Health Organization warned, “We know another pandemic is inevitable. It is coming…we also know that we are unlikely to have enough drugs, vaccines, healthcare workers, and hospital capacity to cope in an ideal way.” On the basis of an epidemiological model project, WHO scientists predict that an influenza pandemic will result in 57 million to 132 million outpatient hospital visits, 1 million to 2.3 million admissions, and between 280,000 and 650,000 deaths in less than two years. The impact on poor nations would be much greater. But I submit that these projections are gross underestimates given the fact that the 1918–1919 influenza epidemic, with mortality rates of a maximum of 20 percent above normal level, caused as many as 40 million deaths. With mortality rates in excess of 60 percent, the H5N1 virus is bound to be much more deadly, particularly because in today’s world of air connectivity, the spread of H5N1 would be much more rapid than that of the 1918 influenza epidemic. Indeed, the death toll could run into hundreds of millions.
AVIAN BIRD FLU WILL KILL BILLIONS.
Satish Chandra, Center for Strategic Decision Research, 2004
[Global Security: A broader Concept for the 21st Century, May 7th http://www.csdr.org/2004book /chandra.htm]
This scenario, as frightening as it is, pales in comparison with what could overtake us by 2007 if the highly pathogenic form of bird flu “H5N1” becomes transmittable human to human; all it would take for this to happen is a simple gene shift in the bird flu virus, which could happen any day. In a globalized world linked by rapid air travel, the disease would spread like a raging forest fire. If it did, it would overwhelm our public health system, cripple our economies, and wipe out a billion people within the space of a few months—a 60 percent mortality rate is estimated.
SURVEILLANCE IS CRITICAL TO MONITOR ANIMAL TRANSFERRED PATHOGENS.
Paul Rincon, BBC News science reporter, 2/20/06, ("'Faster emergence' for diseases", http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4732924.stm)
New infectious diseases are now emerging at an exceptional rate, scientists have told a leading conference in St Louis, US. Humans are accumulating new pathogens at a rate of one per year, they said.
This meant that agencies and governments would have to work harder than ever before to keep on top of the threat, one expert told the BBC. Most of these new infectious diseases, such as avian influenza and HIV/Aids, are coming from other animals. "This accumulation of new pathogens has been going on for millennia - this is how we acquired TB, malaria, smallpox," said Professor Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University Of Edinburgh, UK. "But at the moment, this accumulation does seem to be happening very fast. "So it seems there is something special about modern times - these are good times for pathogens to be invading the human population." Professor Woolhouse has catalogued more than 1,400 different agents of disease in humans; and every year, scientists are discovering one or two new ones.
Some may have been around for a long time and have only just come to light. Others that have emerged recently are entirely new, such as HIV; the virus that causes Sars, and the agent of vCJD. The difference today, say researchers, is the way humans are interacting with other animals in their environment. Changes in land use through, for example, deforestation can bring humans into contact with new pathogens; and, likewise, agricultural changes, such as the use of exotic livestock. Other important drivers include global travel, global trade and hospitalisation. The fast rate at which pathogens are appearing means public health experts will need to work harder than ever to control the spread of emerging disease threats. "The sort of image I want to get away from is the famous statement from the 1960s when the US Surgeon General said, 'diseases were beat'," Professor Woolhouse told the BBC News website. "Pathogens are evolving ways to combat our control methods. The picture is changing and looks as if it will continue to. We're going to have to run as fast as we can to stay in the same place." He added: "We need surveillance. Surveillance in most parts of the world for infectious disease is really quite poor - particularly surveillance for infectious diseases in animals such as vermin like rats." Experts were speaking on the subject at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in the Missouri city of St Louis.
ADVANTAGE TWO: BIOTERRORISM
RISK OF A BIOTERROR ATTACK IS HIGH WITH THE WIDESPREAD OFMATERIALS, INFORMATION, AND RECRUITMENT IN ABUNDANCE.
Unfortunately, both the risk of a bioterror attack and the potential destruction such an attack could cause are significant—and rising.
In assessing the risk of a given type of attack, there are three ingredients to measure: the availability of the relevant materials (from small arms to "loose nukes"); the availability of know-how to overcome the obstacles to using those materials to effect an attack; and the existence of actors with the motive to use them. In the case of bioterrorism, all three ingredients are very much present.
First, there is no shortage of supply. The biological materials for potentially deadly attacks are tremendously widespread. By one estimate, there are more than 10,000 facilities worldwide that legally and legitimately possess materials that, if weaponized, could cause enormous loss of life, morbidity, and erosion of health. Many of these facilities are agricultural and commercial, not engaged in high-tech bioengineering or advanced processes that could reasonably be expected to come with detailed tracking of materials and effective security arrangements.
Second, there is no shortage of know-how. One of the great advantages of the biological and health industry is its widening base of scientists worldwide—an advantage that has an obvious downside, in the existence [in] of a large number of individuals whose knowledge can be tapped for nefarious purposes. Moreover, the technological know-how and materials for weaponizing several biological agents is increasingly available, even to individuals. In preparing background materials for the High-Level Panel, we were warned by some of the world's leading scientists that it would be only a matter of years before the tools required for weaponization were available through the Web. As we completed our work, some of these same scientists alerted us to the fact that they had been mistaken: materials are already available on the Web, often for as little as $50,000.
Third, there is no shortage of groups with motive—at least, as far as we know. Certainly, senior al-Qaeda officials have stated publicly and in captured correspondence between themselves their interest in obtaining nuclear, biological, and chemical materials for use in large-scale terrorist attacks. But the history of modern terrorism suggests that we should be every bit as concerned by groups we don't yet know about. Given the widespread availability and relatively easy accessibility of materials, and the accessibility of equipment and know-how to weaponize them, even fairly unsophisticated groups pose a threat. Indeed, as the science and the technology develops, we face the prospect that eventually small groups and even individuals will possess the technological ability to threaten even powerful states.
A BIOTERRORIST ATTACK WOULD RESULT IN EXTINCTION AS THE ATTACK CAN’T BE CONTAINED AND WILL SPREAD QUICKLY.
Richard Ochs, president of CWWG (Chemical Weapons Working Group), 2002 "biological weapons must be abolished immediately"
Of all the weapons of mass destruction, the genetically engineered biological weapons, many without a known cure or vaccine, are an extreme danger to the continued survival of life on earth. Any perceived military value or deterrence pales in comparison to the great risk these weapons pose just sitting in vials in laboratories.
While a "nuclear winter," resulting from a massive exchange of nuclear weapons, could also kill off most of life on earth and severely compromise the health of future generations, they are easier to control. Biological weapons, on the other hand, can get out of control very easily, as the recent anthrax attacks has demonstrated. There is no way to guarantee the security of these doomsday weapons because very tiny amounts can be stolen or accidentally released and then grow or be grown to horrendous proportions. The Black Death of the Middle Ages would be small in comparison to the potential damage bioweapons could cause.
Abolition of chemical weapons is less of a priority because, while they can also kill millions of people outright, their persistence in the environment would be less than nuclear or biological agents or more localized. Hence, chemical weapons would have a lesser effect on future generations of innocent people and the natural environment. Like the Holocaust, once a localized chemical extermination is over, it is over. With nuclear and biological weapons, the killing will probably never end. Radioactive elements last tens of thousands of years and will keep causing cancers virtually forever.
Potentially worse than that, bio-engineered agents by the hundreds with no known cure could wreck even greater calamity on the human race than could persistent radiation. AIDS and ebola viruses are just a small example of recently emerging plagues with no known cure or vaccine. Can we imagine hundreds of such plagues? HUMAN EXTINCTION IS NOW POSSIBLE.
LUCKILY, DISEASE SURVEILLANCE IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO TAP INTO THE PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM AS AN INTELLIGENCE RESOURCE IN ORDER TO PREVENT AND RAPIDLY RESPOND TO A POTENTIAL ATTACK.
PRNewswire, 8-4,-2005, Nexus (C-5)
"Better medical surveillance tools and stronger links between law enforcement and national health authorities are needed to help protect the world against attacks from terrorists using chemical or biological weapons," emergency preparedness specialist Michael J. Hopmeier told a recent conference on integrating intelligence, policing and health, co-hosted by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
"The public health system presents an enormous untapped resource for intelligence gathering and the protection of national security," said Hopmeier, President of Unconventional Concepts Inc., a Mary Esther, Florida- based engineering and scientific consulting firm specializing in crisis management and integrated federal/civilian disaster response.
"Beyond the roles in prevention and protection played by the public health sector, and their obvious implications for national security, there is also an enormous infrastructure for early warning detection of terrorist threats," Hopmeier said. "For that reason, public health agencies can contribute to both intelligence collection and national security
Conflict has also become increasingly severe, with the emergence of intense genocidal conflict in Sudan and Rwanda (Jennings, 2001). The majority of wars in sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. 92%of those in 2000) have been civil conflicts fought within the boundaries of a single sovereign state (State Failure, 2001). However, internal wars are no less capable of having international consequences than transboundary conflict. A common feature of civil war is the mass displacement of people, and if this involves movement across an international border, a significant number of the ecological consequences of the conflict may be displaced into the recipient country, as seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after the Rwandan genocide of 1994 (Elongo, 2000). Equally, the unpredictable and unstructured nature of civil war, with the frequent emergence of new belligerent groups and shifting alliances, promotes frequent and repeated population displacements and a disparate security situation at anything above the immediately local level (Hart &
Mwinyihali, 2001; Kalpers 2001a).
[F2]Disease Surveillance is key to detect and stop genocide
Lester Brewslow, Professor Emeritus, Health Services, UCLA School of Public Health, 2002, “Genocide”, http://health.enotes.com/public-health-enyclopedia/genocide
[F2]Disease Surveillance is key to addressing Genocide
Brian M. Willis and Barry S. Levy, Brian Willis works with the CDC, Barry Levy is the past president of the American Public Health
Association, 8/2/2000, Recognizing the Public Health Impact of Genocide, http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/284/5/612.pdf
HM HUTCHINSON/PANG
OBSERVATION ONE: INHERENCY
AFRICAN DISEASE SURVEILLANE IS FRAGMENTED, CRUSHING THE ABILITY TO DETECT AND MONITOR DISEASES EFFECTIVELY
Jonathan R. Davis and Joshua Lederberg (Editors), Forum on Emerging Infections, Board on Global Health, Institute of Medicine (Authoring organization), 2001, “Emerging Infectious Diseases from the Global to the Local Perspective”, p. 52-53, http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10084
As a region, Africa is characterized by the greatest infectious disease burden and, overall, the weakest public health infrastructure among all regions in the world. Frequently, vertically oriented disease surveillance programs at the national level and above in Africa often result in too much paperwork, too many different instructions, different terminologies, too many administrators, and conflicting priorities. Streamlined communications, strengthened public health surveillance, the use of standard case definitions, criteria for minimum data requirements, and emphasis on feedback through integrated forms, as well as research and training opportunities, are among the important tools available to improve the situation. Yet, efforts to establish fully more effective public health infrastructures may take a period of years to decades.
The aim in Africa is to identify a group of priority diseases categorized as epidemic-prone diseases, diseases targeted for eradication or elimination, and other diseases of public health importance. The challenge will be to integrate surveillance and epidemic preparedness and response activities for these priority diseases, especially when there are weakened ministries of health. Bilateral and multilateral agreements, as well as partnerships with nongovernmental organizations and commercial interests, are among the means being explored to strengthen disease surveillance and response activities, to transfer epidemiological and microbiological skills, and to facilitate timely recognition of these disease outbreaks and their control. Among the promising roles provided by global disease surveillance is the integration of new technology tools in resource-poor environments, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, for the development of an early-warning system based on remotely sensed (satellite) data for Rift Valley fever surveillance.
AFRICAN SURVEILLANCE LACKS TRAINED PERSONNEL AND LAB FACILITIES.
Declan Butler, senior reporter at Nature, 3-2-06, Nature 440 pp. 6-7, “Disease Surveillance needs a revolution”
With avian flu spreading around the world at a frightening rate, scientists are welcoming an international proposal for state-of-the-art labs to monitor emerging diseases in developing countries. But they add that the bird-flu crisis has exposed glaring deficiencies that demand a radical rethink of the world's veterinary and disease-surveillance systems.
Avian flu is now endemic across large parts of Asia, and in the past few weeks has exploded across Europe and into Africa. "H5N1 has focused the spotlight of the world on disease surveillance, and it's showing up all the pimples and warts," says Bill Davenhall, who develops health mapping schemes for countries and is head of health at ESRI, a geographic information systems company in Redlands, California.
Developing countries, in particular, lack decent human-disease surveillance, and animal monitoring is often virtually nonexistent, with few basic laboratory and epidemiological resources available. "On the ground in Indonesia, there is no systematic programme at all," says Peter Roeder, a field consultant with the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "It's just a bloody mess."
It is a problem that the developed world cannot ignore, because a disease that emerges in Bangkok or Jakarta could ultimately trigger a global disaster. So researchers at the US Department of Defense have suggested setting up a network of high-tech labs in developing countries to monitor cases of infectious disease (see page 25). The labs would be modelled on the US network of infectious-disease labs, such as the naval research unit NAMRU-2 in Jakarta. But they would be funded by the international community
Such a network could vastly speed up and improve the diagnosis of viruses such as H5N1 when outbreaks occur, says Roeder. He points out that misdiagnosis of H5N1 as Newcastle disease in recent outbreaks in Nigeria and India led to long delays in control measures.
Mark Savey, an epidemiologist who heads animal health at France's food-safety agency, also welcomes the proposal, but cautions against the "mirage of technology" in surveillance. "You don't need satellites, PCR and geographic information systems to fight outbreaks," he says. The labs' top priority should be building large teams of local staff, who are familiar with the region and its practices, he argues. "If you do not have that, then surveillance will stay in the Middle Ages."
Savey recalls his trip to Russia last summer as part of a European team investigating outbreaks of avian flu. "You have a paper Michelin map; you have people who speak the language; you put red circles on outbreaks; and you use a pen and paper to compare them with things like the dates of market openings, and with how outbreaks line up with railways." Such local knowledge is crucial to interpreting data, he says. "If you don't know what the Trans-Siberian Express is like, with people cooped up for days, exchanging chickens and eggs at every stop, you would never guess that it was the Trans-Siberian that mainly spread avian flu across Russia."
Roeder agrees that the focus must be local. "No amount of setting international guidelines and publishing global action plans is going to help when you have an organization within the country that doesn't know what to do," he says
ADVANTAGE ONE: DISEASES
THE DANGER OF NEW AND REMERGING DISEASES IS GROWING—THEY QUICKLY SPREAD ACROSS BORDERS MAKING THEM DIFFICULT TO CONTAIN.
US Government Accountability Office, 9-04, “EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Review of State and Federal Disease Surveillance Efforts” [Sigrist]
Infectious diseases account for millions of deaths every year. Although the
great majority of these deaths occur in developing countries, infectious
diseases are not confined by international borders and therefore present a
substantial threat to populations in all parts of the world, including the
United States. In recent years, the threat posed by infectious diseases has
grown. New diseases, unknown in the United States just a decade ago,
such as West Nile virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS),
have emerged, and known infectious diseases once considered in decline
have reappeared with increased frequency. Furthermore, there is always
the potential for an infectious disease to develop into a widespread
outbreak—which could have significant consequences. The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that if an influenza
pandemic1 were to occur in the United States, it could cause an estimated
314,000 to 734,000 hospitalizations and 89,000 to 207,000 deaths, with
associated costs ranging from $71 to $167 billion.2 In addition to naturally
occurring infectious disease outbreaks, there is also the threat posed by
the deployment of infectious disease pathogens3 as weapons of war or
instruments of terror.
SPECIFICALLY, SUB SAHARAN AFRICA HAS BECOME AN “IDEAL INCUBATOR” FOR THESE PATHOGENS TO GROW STRONGER.
Some of the viruses are notorious, such as Ebola and HIV. Others have less familiar names: Marburg and Lassa fever. But they all have emerged in recent decades from sub-Saharan Africa, perplexing scientists and, in the case of HIV, killing millions. Africa is recognized as an ideal incubator for new pathogens: It has rapidly growing human populations and high biodiversity, along with widespread poverty, poor medical care and, in many countries, armed conflict that forces civilians to flee far from their homes. "For every virus that we know about, there are hundreds that we don't know anything about," said Dr. Dan Bausch, a professor at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine who studies Marburg, Ebola and other emerging diseases in Africa. "Most of them, we probably don't even know that they're out there." Scientists remain especially baffled by Marburg. Since 1967, the Marburg virus and its equally lethal cousin, Ebola, have killed more than 1,600 people. The latest Marburg outbreak has killed at least 277 people in Angola, hundreds of miles from where it last emerged four years ago, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "To be honest with you, I have no indication what the source is," said Dr. Pierre Formenty, the World Health Organization's senior Marburg expert, speaking from the epicenter of the outbreak, in Uige, Angola. "That was not our first priority. Now we are working on it."
SUBPOINT A: SUPERDISEASES
SEVERAL FACTORS INFLUENCE THE GROWTH AND SPREAD OF PATHOGENS- POPULATION GROWTH, CLIMATE CHANGE, DRUG RESISTANCE, LIVESTOCK HANDLING—ARE ONLY A FEW OF THE THINGS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO MUTATIONS OF DISEASES.
Researchers say West Nile may be just one example of an infectious disease whose incidence and geographic range have expanded because of human activities affecting the mosquitoes, birds, rodents and other animals that help spread the infection. Since the mid-1970's -- a time when it was widely assumed that most infectious diseases had been conquered or at least controlled -- a troubling array of previously unknown diseases has emerged, including Lyme disease, AIDS, mad cow disease, the Ebola virus, Legionnaires' disease and a host of others. In addition, old diseases like yellow fever, malaria and dengue fever have reappeared in their former haunts and spread to new areas. Some microbes, like the ones that cause tuberculosis, malaria and food poisoning, have become dangerously drug resistant. In a 2000 report, the World Health Organization identified a half-dozen factors that could affect the distribution and emergence of infectious diseases. The factors include ecological changes like those from global warming and changes in land use; human factors like population growth, migration, war, sexual behavior, intravenous drug use and overcrowding; international travel and commerce; technological and industrial factors like food processing, livestock handling and organ transplants; microbial changes like the development of antibiotic resistance; and breakdowns in public health measures like sanitation, vaccination and insect control.
THESE MUTATIONS ARE GROWING THREATENING AS DISEASES ARE BECOMING INCREASINGLY DRUG RESISTANCE.
David L Heymann and Guénaël R Rodierthe, WHO's Executive Director for Communicable Diseases, Dec. 01, The Lancet, “Hot spots in a wired world: WHO surveillance of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases”
On another front, resistance to inexpensive and effective
antimicrobial drugs has emerged and spread at an alarming
rate, raising the prospect that many common diseases could
become prohibitively expensive or impossible to treat.27 The
bacterial infections that contribute most to human disease
are also those in which emerging resistance is of most
concern: diarrhoeal diseases such as dysentery, respiratory
tract infections, including pneumococcal pneumonia and
multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, sexually transmitted
infections such as gonorrhoea, and a host of hospitalacquired
infections that are notoriously difficult and
expensive to treat. Among the major infectious diseases, the
development of resistance to drugs commonly used to treat
malaria is of particular concern, as is the emerging resistance
to anti-HIV drugs. Most alarming of all are microbes such as
Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhi that have
accumulated resistance genes to virtually all currently
available drugs and have the potential to cause untreatable
infections, thus raising the spectre of a post-antibiotic era.
Even if the pharmaceutical industry were to step up efforts
to develop new drugs immediately, current trends suggest
that some diseases may have very few and, in some cases, no
effective therapies within the next 10 years.27 Moreover, if
current trends continue, many important medical and
surgical procedures, including cancer chemotherapy, bone
marrow and organ transplantation, and hip and other joint
replacements, could no longer be undertaken out of fear that
the associated compromise of immune function might place
patients at risk of acquiring a difficult to treat and ultimately
fatal infection. Opportunistic infections in AIDS patients
would likewise become an especially difficult challenge.
EVENTUALLY THESE MUTATIONS WILL GET OUT OF CONTROL—CULMINATING IN PLANETARY EXTINCTION.
South China Morning Post 96
((Hong Kong) January 4, 1996 SECTION: Pg. 15 HEADLINE: Leading the way to a cure for AIDS BYLINE: Kavita Daswani meets a scientist working on a super vaccine to fight AIDS and more deadly viruses yet to come, l/n)
Despite the importance of the discovery of the "facilitating" cell, it is not what Dr Ben-Abraham wants to talk about. There is a much more pressing medical crisis at hand - one he believes the world must be alerted to: the possibility of a virus deadlier than HIV. If this makes Dr Ben-Abraham sound like a prophet of doom, then he makes no apology for it. AIDS, the Ebola outbreak which killed more than 100 people in Africa last year, the flu epidemic that has now affected 200,000 in the former Soviet Union - they are all, according to Dr Ben-Abraham, the "tip of the iceberg". Two decades of intensive study and research in the field of virology have convinced him of one thing: in place of natural and man-made disasters or nuclear warfare, humanity could face extinction because of a single virus, deadlier than HIV. "An airborne virus is a lively, complex and dangerous organism," he said. "It can come from a rare animal or from anywhere and can mutate constantly. If there is no cure, it affects one person and then there is a chain reaction and it is unstoppable. It is a tragedy waiting to happen." That may sound like a far-fetched plot for a Hollywood film, but Dr Ben -Abraham said history has already proven his theory. Fifteen years ago, few could have predicted the impact of AIDS on the world. Ebola has had sporadic outbreaks over the past 20 years and the only way the deadly virus - which turns internal organs into liquid - could be contained was because it was killed before it had a chance to spread. Imagine, he says, if it was closer to home: an outbreak of that scale in London, New York or Hong Kong. It could happen anytime in the next 20 years - theoretically, it could happen tomorrow. The shock of the AIDS epidemic has prompted virus experts to admit "that something new is indeed happening and that the threat of a deadly viral outbreak is imminent", said Joshua Lederberg of the Rockefeller University in New York, at a recent conference. He added that the problem was "very serious and is getting worse". Dr Ben-Abraham said: "Nature isn't benign. The survival of the human species is not a preordained evolutionary programme. Abundant sources of genetic variation exist for viruses to learn how to mutate and evade the immune system." He cites the 1968 Hong Kong flu outbreak as an example of how viruses have outsmarted human intelligence. And as new "mega-cities" are being developed in the Third World and rainforests are destroyed, disease-carrying animals and insects are forced into areas of human habitation. "This raises the very real possibility that lethal, mysterious viruses would, for the first time, infect humanity at a large scale and imperil the survival of the human race," he said.
In the volatile new milieu of emerging, adapting, and highly mobile pathogens, the best defence is good infectious disease intelligence, on a global scale, gleaned through sensitive surveillance. Surveillance systems keep the world alert to changes in the infectious disease threat and provide the background data needed to detect an unusual event, whether involving an upsurge in cases of a well-known endemic disease, the appearance of a previously unknown pathogen, or an outbreak caused by the deliberate use of a biological agent to cause harm. Because susceptibility to infectious diseases and
the opportunities for infection rapidly increase with poverty, poverty remains the variable most frequently associated with the occurrence of infectious diseases.21 Not surprisingly, outbreaks of both newly identified diseases and well-known epidemic-prone diseases occur most frequently in countries that lack the epidemiological and laboratory
capacity to detect them quickly and contain their spread (figure 2). For this reason, continuing surveillance, supported by strengthening of national capacities, is further needed to keep the international community prepared to provide assistance, in
the interest of defending global health security, whenever needed.
SUB POINT B IS RE-REMERGING DISEASES- THE FLU
[MUTATION OF THE AVIAN FLU IS INEVITABLE—IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME UNTIL IT IS AIRBORNE.
Satish Chandra, Deputy National Security Advisor of India – Center for Strategic Decision Research, 2004
[Global Security: A broader Concept for the 21st Century, 5/7, http://www.csdr.org/2004book /chandra.htm]
If the possibility of the collapse of the thermohaline circulation system is alarming, the possibility of a human-to-human transmittable bird flu pandemic is a nightmare. What makes it so frightening is the fact that it could happen at any time and that we are ill prepared to face it. At current mortality rates, it could result in the sudden death of 15 to 20 percent of mankind. The most severe health crisis in recent years in terms of numbers of deaths was the 1918–1919 influenza epidemic, which in the space of one year caused an estimated 40 million deaths worldwide. Begun in Kansas in March 1918, the epidemic spread to Europe and then to India, Australia, and New Zealand. The virulence and mortality rate of the first wave of the disease, in the spring of 1918, was only slightly above normal levels but the second wave, which began in the fall of 1918, was extraordinarily deadly, with mortality rates of 5 to 20 percent above normal levels. It is believed that the fall strain of the virus came about through genetic mutation and that the genetic structure of the virus was a form of a swine and avian influenza strain. Since 1918, the world has seen several influenza outbreaks, most notably the 1957 Asian flu outbreak and the 1968 Hong Kong flu outbreak, each of which killed a million people. While WHO now has an Influenza Surveillance Program in place as well as an Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Plan, we still need to examine the possibility of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu becoming transmittable from human to human, the outcome of such a situation, and what must be done to address the possibility. Since the end of 2003, outbreaks of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian influenza, or bird flu, have occurred in eight Asian countries, resulting in the loss of 100 million poultry birds. The implications for human health are worrisome because of the extreme pathogenic nature of this virus—it has the capability to infect humans and cause severe illness, with mortality rates of 60 to 70 percent. It has already infected humans three times in the recent past: In 1997 and 2003 in Hong Kong and in 2004 in Vietnam and Thailand. So far the disease has been transmitted only to humans who came in contact with dead or diseased poultry—it has not yet mutated to being capable of human-to-human transmission. The Likelihood of a Pandemic Since the H5N1 strain has not been eliminated from its avian hosts, it is obviously endemic. The risk, therefore, that the virus could take on a new form that would make it capable of human-to- human transmission is considerable, especially because mass vaccinations of chickens, aimed at mitigating the disaster facing poultry farmers, has allowed the virus to continue to circulate among the vaccinated birds. It can thus linger indefinitely in poultry, making the gene mutation required to make it transmittable from human to human an even greater possibility. It could be said that there are three prerequisites for the start of a pandemic: 1) a new virus must emerge against which the general population has little or no immunity; 2) the new virus must be able to replicate in humans and cause disease; and 3) the new virus must be efficiently transmitted from one human to another. Dr. Anarji Asamoa Baah, Assistant Director General, Communicable Diseases, WHO, asserts that, regarding H5N1, the first two prerequisites have already been met, and it is known that the virus can become more transmittable via two mechanisms, “adaptive mutation” and “genetic re-assortment.” Dr. Baah has further contended that re-assortment of H5N1 with a human influenza virus can take place in humans without prior adaptation in other species such as swine. It is clear, therefore, that 1) the H5N1 virus will continue to circulate for a very long time in poultry birds; 2) the threat to public health will be there as long as the virus continues to circulate in poultry birds; 3) should the virus become transmittable from human to human, the consequences for human health worldwide, in the words of Dr. Baah, “could be devastating;” and 4) the world needs to be prepared to respond to the next influenza outbreak. During an Influenza Pandemic Preparedness meeting in Geneva in March 2004, the head of the World Health Organization warned, “We know another pandemic is inevitable. It is coming…we also know that we are unlikely to have enough drugs, vaccines, healthcare workers, and hospital capacity to cope in an ideal way.” On the basis of an epidemiological model project, WHO scientists predict that an influenza pandemic will result in 57 million to 132 million outpatient hospital visits, 1 million to 2.3 million admissions, and between 280,000 and 650,000 deaths in less than two years. The impact on poor nations would be much greater. But I submit that these projections are gross underestimates given the fact that the 1918–1919 influenza epidemic, with mortality rates of a maximum of 20 percent above normal level, caused as many as 40 million deaths. With mortality rates in excess of 60 percent, the H5N1 virus is bound to be much more deadly, particularly because in today’s world of air connectivity, the spread of H5N1 would be much more rapid than that of the 1918 influenza epidemic. Indeed, the death toll could run into hundreds of millions.
AVIAN BIRD FLU WILL KILL BILLIONS.
Satish Chandra, Center for Strategic Decision Research, 2004
[Global Security: A broader Concept for the 21st Century, May 7th http://www.csdr.org/2004book /chandra.htm]
This scenario, as frightening as it is, pales in comparison with what could overtake us by 2007 if the highly pathogenic form of bird flu “H5N1” becomes transmittable human to human; all it would take for this to happen is a simple gene shift in the bird flu virus, which could happen any day. In a globalized world linked by rapid air travel, the disease would spread like a raging forest fire. If it did, it would overwhelm our public health system, cripple our economies, and wipe out a billion people within the space of a few months—a 60 percent mortality rate is estimated.
SURVEILLANCE IS CRITICAL TO MONITOR ANIMAL TRANSFERRED PATHOGENS.
Paul Rincon, BBC News science reporter, 2/20/06, ("'Faster emergence' for diseases", http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4732924.stm)
New infectious diseases are now emerging at an exceptional rate, scientists have told a leading conference in St Louis, US. Humans are accumulating new pathogens at a rate of one per year, they said.
This meant that agencies and governments would have to work harder than ever before to keep on top of the threat, one expert told the BBC. Most of these new infectious diseases, such as avian influenza and HIV/Aids, are coming from other animals. "This accumulation of new pathogens has been going on for millennia - this is how we acquired TB, malaria, smallpox," said Professor Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University Of Edinburgh, UK. "But at the moment, this accumulation does seem to be happening very fast. "So it seems there is something special about modern times - these are good times for pathogens to be invading the human population." Professor Woolhouse has catalogued more than 1,400 different agents of disease in humans; and every year, scientists are discovering one or two new ones.
Some may have been around for a long time and have only just come to light. Others that have emerged recently are entirely new, such as HIV; the virus that causes Sars, and the agent of vCJD. The difference today, say researchers, is the way humans are interacting with other animals in their environment. Changes in land use through, for example, deforestation can bring humans into contact with new pathogens; and, likewise, agricultural changes, such as the use of exotic livestock. Other important drivers include global travel, global trade and hospitalisation. The fast rate at which pathogens are appearing means public health experts will need to work harder than ever to control the spread of emerging disease threats. "The sort of image I want to get away from is the famous statement from the 1960s when the US Surgeon General said, 'diseases were beat'," Professor Woolhouse told the BBC News website. "Pathogens are evolving ways to combat our control methods. The picture is changing and looks as if it will continue to. We're going to have to run as fast as we can to stay in the same place." He added: "We need surveillance. Surveillance in most parts of the world for infectious disease is really quite poor - particularly surveillance for infectious diseases in animals such as vermin like rats." Experts were speaking on the subject at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in the Missouri city of St Louis.
ADVANTAGE TWO: BIOTERRORISM
RISK OF A BIOTERROR ATTACK IS HIGH WITH THE WIDESPREAD OFMATERIALS, INFORMATION, AND RECRUITMENT IN ABUNDANCE.
Unfortunately, both the risk of a bioterror attack and the potential destruction such an attack could cause are significant—and rising.
In assessing the risk of a given type of attack, there are three ingredients to measure: the availability of the relevant materials (from small arms to "loose nukes"); the availability of know-how to overcome the obstacles to using those materials to effect an attack; and the existence of actors with the motive to use them. In the case of bioterrorism, all three ingredients are very much present.
First, there is no shortage of supply. The biological materials for potentially deadly attacks are tremendously widespread. By one estimate, there are more than 10,000 facilities worldwide that legally and legitimately possess materials that, if weaponized, could cause enormous loss of life, morbidity, and erosion of health. Many of these facilities are agricultural and commercial, not engaged in high-tech bioengineering or advanced processes that could reasonably be expected to come with detailed tracking of materials and effective security arrangements.
Second, there is no shortage of know-how. One of the great advantages of the biological and health industry is its widening base of scientists worldwide—an advantage that has an obvious downside, in the existence [in] of a large number of individuals whose knowledge can be tapped for nefarious purposes. Moreover, the technological know-how and materials for weaponizing several biological agents is increasingly available, even to individuals. In preparing background materials for the High-Level Panel, we were warned by some of the world's leading scientists that it would be only a matter of years before the tools required for weaponization were available through the Web. As we completed our work, some of these same scientists alerted us to the fact that they had been mistaken: materials are already available on the Web, often for as little as $50,000.
Third, there is no shortage of groups with motive—at least, as far as we know. Certainly, senior al-Qaeda officials have stated publicly and in captured correspondence between themselves their interest in obtaining nuclear, biological, and chemical materials for use in large-scale terrorist attacks. But the history of modern terrorism suggests that we should be every bit as concerned by groups we don't yet know about. Given the widespread availability and relatively easy accessibility of materials, and the accessibility of equipment and know-how to weaponize them, even fairly unsophisticated groups pose a threat. Indeed, as the science and the technology develops, we face the prospect that eventually small groups and even individuals will possess the technological ability to threaten even powerful states.
A BIOTERRORIST ATTACK WOULD RESULT IN EXTINCTION AS THE ATTACK CAN’T BE CONTAINED AND WILL SPREAD QUICKLY.
Richard Ochs, president of CWWG (Chemical Weapons Working Group), 2002 "biological weapons must be abolished immediately"
Of all the weapons of mass destruction, the genetically engineered biological weapons, many without a known cure or vaccine, are an extreme danger to the continued survival of life on earth. Any perceived military value or deterrence pales in comparison to the great risk these weapons pose just sitting in vials in laboratories.
While a "nuclear winter," resulting from a massive exchange of nuclear weapons, could also kill off most of life on earth and severely compromise the health of future generations, they are easier to control. Biological weapons, on the other hand, can get out of control very easily, as the recent anthrax attacks has demonstrated. There is no way to guarantee the security of these doomsday weapons because very tiny amounts can be stolen or accidentally released and then grow or be grown to horrendous proportions. The Black Death of the Middle Ages would be small in comparison to the potential damage bioweapons could cause.
Abolition of chemical weapons is less of a priority because, while they can also kill millions of people outright, their persistence in the environment would be less than nuclear or biological agents or more localized. Hence, chemical weapons would have a lesser effect on future generations of innocent people and the natural environment. Like the Holocaust, once a localized chemical extermination is over, it is over. With nuclear and biological weapons, the killing will probably never end. Radioactive elements last tens of thousands of years and will keep causing cancers virtually forever.
Potentially worse than that, bio-engineered agents by the hundreds with no known cure could wreck even greater calamity on the human race than could persistent radiation. AIDS and ebola viruses are just a small example of recently emerging plagues with no known cure or vaccine. Can we imagine hundreds of such plagues? HUMAN EXTINCTION IS NOW POSSIBLE.
LUCKILY, DISEASE SURVEILLANCE IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO TAP INTO THE PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM AS AN INTELLIGENCE RESOURCE IN ORDER TO PREVENT AND RAPIDLY RESPOND TO A POTENTIAL ATTACK.
PRNewswire, 8-4,-2005, Nexus (C-5)
"Better medical surveillance tools and stronger links between law enforcement and national health authorities are needed to help protect the world against attacks from terrorists using chemical or biological weapons," emergency preparedness specialist Michael J. Hopmeier told a recent conference on integrating intelligence, policing and health, co-hosted by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
"The public health system presents an enormous untapped resource for intelligence gathering and the protection of national security," said Hopmeier, President of Unconventional Concepts Inc., a Mary Esther, Florida- based engineering and scientific consulting firm specializing in crisis management and integrated federal/civilian disaster response.
"Beyond the roles in prevention and protection played by the public health sector, and their obvious implications for national security, there is also an enormous infrastructure for early warning detection of terrorist threats," Hopmeier said. "For that reason, public health agencies can contribute to both intelligence collection and national security
Conflict has also become increasingly severe, with the emergence of intense genocidal conflict in Sudan and Rwanda (Jennings, 2001). The majority of wars in sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. 92%of those in 2000) have been civil conflicts fought within the boundaries of a single sovereign state (State Failure, 2001). However, internal wars are no less capable of having international consequences than transboundary conflict. A common feature of civil war is the mass displacement of people, and if this involves movement across an international border, a significant number of the ecological consequences of the conflict may be displaced into the recipient country, as seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after the Rwandan genocide of 1994 (Elongo, 2000). Equally, the unpredictable and unstructured nature of civil war, with the frequent emergence of new belligerent groups and shifting alliances, promotes frequent and repeated population displacements and a disparate security situation at anything above the immediately local level (Hart &
Mwinyihali, 2001; Kalpers 2001a).
[F2]Disease Surveillance is key to detect and stop genocide
Lester Brewslow, Professor Emeritus, Health Services, UCLA School of Public Health, 2002, “Genocide”, http://health.enotes.com/public-health-enyclopedia/genocide
[F2]Disease Surveillance is key to addressing Genocide
Brian M. Willis and Barry S. Levy, Brian Willis works with the CDC, Barry Levy is the past president of the American Public Health
Association, 8/2/2000, Recognizing the Public Health Impact of Genocide, http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/284/5/612.pdf
The Genocide outweighs—it is more than just a body count.
DAVID P. EISENMAN, an associate natural scientist at the RAND Corporation and an assistant professor for the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services UCLA, 2007, http://health.enotes.com/public-healthencyclopedia/ genocide [adit]
THUS WE OFFER THE FOLLOWING PLAN:
The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its public health assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa by fully funding the creation of disease surveillance laboratories in Sub-Saharan Africa under the authority of the Department of Defense.
OBSERVATION TWO: SOLVENCY
EMPIRICALLY, THE DOD HAS BEEN EFFECTIVE AT PREVENTING AND TREATING DISEASE OUTBREAKS IN AFRICA.
Patrick W. Kelley, M.D., Dr. P.H., Colonel and Director, Division of Preventive Medicine Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Institute of Medicine (Authoring organization), 2001, “Emerging Infectious Diseases from the Global to the Local Perspective”, p. 57, http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10084
An example of recent DOD involvement in Africa was the outbreak of Rift Valley fever in 1997–1998 in East Africa. Approximately 80,000 people ultimately contracted Rift Valley fever, resulting in hundreds of deaths. In addition to the direct toll on the human population, there was a tremendous toll on the animal population in this pastoral economy. Using its laboratory in Kenya, DOD was able to quickly assist with the initial epidemiological and entomological investigations. At the time that the outbreak surfaced Kenya had no laboratory capacity for the diagnosis of Rift Valley fever. Specimens had to be sent to either South Africa or CDC to make the diagnosis. Using resources at its laboratory in Cairo, DOD was able to quickly transfer technology for rapid diagnosis to Kenya so that the outbreak could be defined rapidly and locally. Experts in remote sensing also collected data to establish indicators that are evident at least 3 or 4 months before outbreaks. In the future this will enable the government to initiate immunizations for animals and thus prevent the amplification of the virus and its transmission to humans. DOD also provided access to the Rift Valley fever vaccine for at-risk laboratory workers in Kenya.
DOD LABORATORIES ARE CAPABLE OF STREAMLINING THE AFRICAN SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM, AND OFFER THE BEST TECHNOLOGY AND PERSONNEL TRAINING.
Patrick W. Kelley, M.D., Dr. P.H., Colonel and Director, Division of Preventive Medicine Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Institute of Medicine (Authoring organization), 2001, “Emerging Infectious Diseases from the Global to the Local Perspective”, p. 56, http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10084
A major asset is the DOD network of overseas laboratories in Egypt, Kenya, Thailand, Indonesia, and Peru. These are medical research and development laboratories that in some cases were established more than 50 years ago and that exist primarily for the purpose of product development. For example, the key studies conducted for the licensure of the hepatitis A and the Japanese encephalitis vaccines were done at these laboratories.
These laboratories have, in some instances, a biosafety level 3 capability. The laboratory in Cairo, Egypt, can if necessary, adapt to a biosafety level 4 capability. Although located in 5 countries, these laboratories have active research programs in about 31 countries; they have established extensive networks in their regions and have formal relationships with many ministries of health and the WHO.
The laboratories have tremendous depth. In almost every case they have expertise in virology, bacteriology, parasitology, other aspects of microbiology, veterinary medicine, and epidemiology. Although their primary purpose was to support product development, increasingly they are becoming involved with surveillance. In all, about 700 people work at these laboratories and are backed up by more than 800 more DOD scientists working on issues related to emerging infections.
The laboratories have additional assets: they are networked with state-of-the-art communications technologies and possess cutting-edge field diagnostic reagents that are field oriented, rapid, and invaluable in the response to emerging infectious diseases. In addition, the laboratories have access to special drugs and vaccines that might be of critical importance in regions with outbreaks of unusual pathogens.
US is key to disease surveillance—superior science/technology proves (H8)
Population Council, 3/96, The National Science and Technology Council on Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases,
Population and Development Review http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0098-
7921%28199603%2922%3A1%3C175%3ATNSATC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8
Thus the effort to build a global surveillance and response system is in accord with the national security and foreign policy goals of the United States. Moreover, leadership in global infectious disease surveillance and control is a natural role for the United States. American business leaders and scientists are in the forefront of the computer communications and biomedical research communications (both public and private sector) that provide the technical and scientific underpinning for disease surveillance. Furthermore, American scientists and public health professionals have being among the most important contributors to the international efforts to eradicate small pox
and polio.
Disease Surveillance
Water Wars
HM SIGRIST/DAREDIA
Plan: The United States Federal Government should fund the creation of disease surveillance laboratories in Sub-Saharan Africa.
1 AC: Everything on the 1AC + (at the end)
The US must lead disease surveillance to ensure national security on bioweapons.
Amy Sands, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Center For Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute Of International Studies, 3-19-02 ('Reducing The Threat Of Chemical And Biological Weapons", Hearing Before The Committee On Foreign Relations United States Senate One Hundred Seventh Congress, http://www.globalsecurity.org /military/library/congress /2002_hr/shrg319.pdf , p. 48 [KSutt]
To initiate such a process, the United States should work with Europe, Japan and other like-minded states to develop the national legislation needed to prevent misuse and unauthorized access to dangerous biological agents and toxins. Using these efforts as models, the U.S. must lead the effort on an international level and with industry and academia to define international standards of safety and security in the bio-technology sector so that we will have more control over where the materials of concern are, who has access to them, how they are controlled and how they are stored and transferred. A second recommendation is that we strengthen the public health sector within the United States and internationally. We need, obviously it's been said already today, to improve our own public health sector, but we also need to work with other international groups and foreign governments to the same internationally. The proposed draft legislation of Senator Biden and Helms called the Global Disease Surveillance Act of 2002 reflects the fact that given the speed of international travel, migration patterns and commercial transportation networks, it will not be enough to shore up American public health capabilities and capacities, recognizing that the best BW delivery system might be humans either knowingly or not. Therefore we must assist others to develop capabilities for disease monitoring, surveillance and response or else leave ourselves vulnerable to the possible exposure to dangerous diseases that could be locally contained. Having recognized the need for more support in this area, the challenge, though, will now be to sustain these efforts both in the United States and elsewhere. Since these activities have dual benefits enhancing both national and international security and public health, it is hoped that their value will be clearly evident and funding will become an integral and ongoing element of our national and public security systems
HM KOLANDJIAN/NABULSI
water aff
before watkins- we're reading gleick '93- War is very real impact to water scarcity, middle east rpvoes,
after postel and wolf- reading gleick '93- water has been the targets and tool of war, wwii iraq, iran, yugoslavia and israel proves.
otherwise same as wiki.
HM REETZ/CAMERON
HM CAMERON-REETZ
RUNNING THE CLEAN WATER AFF
1AC
KEEPING INHERENCY ON THE WIKISITES WEBPAGE
KEEPINH THE DISEASE AND TERRORISM EVIDENCE ON THE WIKISITES WEBPAGE
SUPPLANTING THE WATER WARS ADVANTAGE WITH THE AGRICULTURE ADVANTAGE
CARDS TO BE READ:
WATER SCARCITY IS THE BIGGEST THREAT TO GLOBAL FOOD PRODUCTION-SANDRA POSTEL, 1999
CLEAN WATER KEY TO FIGHT POVERTY THROUGH AGRICULTURE—USAID 2007
HUNGER KILLS MILLIONS EVERY YEAR-BREAD FOR THE WORLD INSTITUTE 2004
SAME PLAN TEXT ON THE WIKISITES WEBSITE
KEEPING ALL OF THE SOLVENCY EVIDENCE ON THE WIKISITES WEBPAGE
STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE IS WORSE THAN THERMONUKE WAR-GILLIGAN EVI
MANN 98—AFF=ETHIC OF CARE
HM STACY/BHATT
WATER WARS
Our 1ac is going to be the wiki with the mann care card at the end of the aff, last card.
THE MANN 98 EVIDENCE IS THE ETHIC OF CARE EVIDENCE READ BY JOHN TURNER IN THE DEMO DEBATE
HM GRIMES/RAMSEY
WATER WARS
Same as the wiki, except with the Mann 98 card at the bottom (ETHIC OF CARE EVIDENCE READ BY JOHN TURNER IN THE PRACTICE DEBATE)
HM CHIPALKATTI/GEORGE
WATER WAR- Same affirmative as on the wiki.
HM LOTFI/SNOW
DISEASE SURVEILLANCE AFFIRMATIVE, SAME AS ON THE WIKI
HM BOXER/Chlistunoff
Water 1AC
Contention 1: Inherency
Water for the Poor Act funds are currently not reaching Sub Saharan Africans
Michael Campana, Director of Water and Watersheds at Arizona State Univesity, 5/19/2007, http://aquadoc.typepad.com/waterwired/2007/05/water_as_a_fore.html.
This post will deal with something else - the Water for the Poor Act, spearheaded by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). A recent post from Reuters-Africa described concerns by Blumenauer and other members of Congress that the Bush Administration is giving the act short shrift by not spending the money where it was intended. The act was passed in 2005 to ensure that long-term projects would provide water where it is needed most - places such as sub-Saharan Africa, which is in dire straits vis-a-vis water and will likely become worse off as the result of global warming.
Blumenauer told a hearing that the State Department and USAID misrepresented how they spent $200 million that was to be targeted to help places like sub-Saharan Africa, where Blumenauer stated that only $10 million was spent. The State Department used most of the funds for reconstruction work in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) said that a Water for the Poor act was passed, not a Water for the War act.
300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to clean water, and it is getting worse
Xinhua News Agency, 5/31/2007
Africa calls for increased funding of water resources, Lexis
African ministers in charge of water have called for increased funding in order to promote the provision, usage and management of water resources in Africa. The call was made Wednesday in Brazzaville, capital of Republic of Congo, at the start of the 6th Ordinary Session of the African Ministers' Council on Water (AMCOW), which is being attended by about 20 ministers and representatives from development partners. "Your presence here demonstrates your willingness to mobilize financial resources with a view to promoting the provision, usage and management of water resources realization of sustainable economic and social development in our countries, without forgetting the preservation of our continent's ecosystems," Republic of Congo's Prime Minister Isidore Mvouba said. Organized under the theme of "Coming together to overcome the challenges posed by water problems in Africa," the session is aimed at consolidating the actions of the AMCOW which, despite recording some progress since its inception in 2002, continues to experience difficulties in achieving its objectives. The objective of the Brazzaville meeting is to examine recommendations made by sub-regional groupings as well as by AMCOW's technical consultative committee. The mission of the attending ministers is to promote political commitment for the establishment of effective strategies for supplying and fostering rational use of water resources for the realization of sustainable development and preservation of Africa's ecosystems. The AMCOW is composed of a council of ministers, an executive committee and a technical consultative committee. Among other things, the executive committee is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the decisions of the council of ministers, elaboration of work programs and mobilization of the necessary financial resources. According to the UN 2006 human development report, more than 300 million people in Africa have no access to drinking water and 313 million people in Africa lack facilities for purifying water.
Water 1AC
Contention 2: Harms
Advantage 1: Diseases
Unclean water kills 3-4 million Africans a year
Geoffrey Dabelko, Director of the Environmental Change and Security Program, 6/29/2005, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, "Congressional Testimony: Water and Sanitation"
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to discuss safe water and sanitation and U.S. foreign assistance. We are all aware of the devastation wrought by HIV/AIDS on sub-Saharan Africa. However, developing countries in Africa and elsewhere face another severe crisis that demands our help. Three to four million people—using half of the hospital beds in the world—die each year from another silent killer: unsafe water. The vast majority of these victims are children, struck down by waterborne typhoid, cholera, diarrhea, and dysentery, and virtually all live in developing countries. Lack of water also impedes the social and economic development of those who survive: women and girls in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa must walk an average of six kilometers to fetch water—each way—preventing them from going to school or working outside the home. And millions more are too sick from chronic waterborne illness to attend school at all.
Children are the most affected – one child per minute dies a water related and preventable death in sub-Saharan Africa
Jim Fisher, United States Department of State, 5/17/07 “US Congress Examines Drinking Water Crisis” All Africa http://allafrica.com/stories/200705180418.html
Millions of people in Africa are stricken with preventable diseases every year because they lack what the developed world takes for granted -- clean drinking water.
The why, how and where of providing what many in the West see as the bedrock of sustainable development were examined at a May 16 hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa.
"Africa is one of the most water-impoverished regions ... and the lack of clean water claims the lives of 4,900 children every day," Subcommittee Chairman Donald Payne said.
Lack of clean water worldwide, but especially in Africa, is "a global crisis," Payne said.
Walter North, senior deputy assistant administrator for Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) agreed, adding, that the United States is working with African partners to meet U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets set to reduce by half by 2015 the number of people without access to clean water.
"More than one child in sub-Saharan Africa dies every minute from diarrheal disease -- a direct result of inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene," North said.
Water 1AC
Unclean water greatly worsens the condition of HIV/AIDS patients, and creates perfect conditions for the spread of HIV/AIDS as well
Thirst Relief International, 2006. “Water Supply Statistics and Facts: AIDS/HIV and Clean Drinking Water”, http://www.thirstrelief.org/facts.htm#death
The lack of clean drinking water is at the root of the African HIV/AIDS pandemic. Children and adults living with HIV/AIDS require clean drinking water to survive. Waterborne illness considered normally mild in healthy adults becomes an incurable death sentence for those affected by HIV/AIDS. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, millions of people lack access to the basic necessity of clean drinking water. In this same region, some 25 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. The result over 2 million children and adults die of HIV/AIDS annually in sub-Saharan Africa alone.
Integral to this horrible cycle, sickness and disease resulting from the consumption of contaminated drinking water destroy the strength and development of African families and communities. This leads to extreme poverty, lack of education, tremendous inequities, and greater illnesses, creating conditions ripe for the continued spread of HIV/AIDS. Caught in this downward spiral, it becomes difficult, and most cases impossible, for individuals to progress out of their terrible plight.
A rapid expansion of African AIDS causes extinction.
Michael Kibaara Muchiri, Staff Member at Ministry of Education in Nairobi; March 6, 2k “Will Annan finally put out Africa’s fires?” Jakarta Post
The executive director of UNAIDS, Peter Piot, estimated that Africa would annually need between $ 1 billion to $ 3 billion to combat the disease, but currently receives only $ 160 million a year in official assistance. World Bank President James Wolfensohn lamented that Africa was losing teachers faster than they could be replaced, and that AIDS was now more effective than war in destabilizing African countries. Statistics show that AIDS is the leading killer in sub-Saharan Africa, surpassing people killed in warfare. In 1998, 200,000 people died from armed conflicts compared to 2.2 million from AIDS. Some 33.6 million people have HIV around the world, 70 percent of them in Africa, thereby robbing countries of their most productive members and decimating entire villages. About 13 million of the 16 million people who have died of AIDS are in Africa, according to the UN. What barometer is used to proclaim a holocaust if this number is not a sure measure? There is no doubt that AIDS is the most serious threat to humankind, more serious than hurricanes, earthquakes, economic crises, capital crashes or floods. It has no cure yet. We are watching a whole continent degenerate into ghostly skeletons that finally succumb to a most excruciating, dehumanizing death. Gore said that his new initiative, if approved by the U.S. Congress, would bring U.S. contributions to fighting AIDS and other infectious diseases to $ 325 million. Does this mean that the UN Security Council and the U.S. in particular have at last decided to remember Africa? Suddenly, AIDS was seen as threat to world peace, and Gore would ask the congress to set up millions of dollars on this case. The hope is that Gore does not intend to make political capital out of this by painting the usually disagreeable Republican-controlled Congress as the bad guy and hope the buck stops on the whole of current and future U.S. governments' conscience. Maybe there is nothing left to salvage in Africa after all and this talk is about the African-American vote in November's U.S. presidential vote. Although the UN and the Security Council cannot solve all African problems, the AIDS challenge is a fundamental one in that it threatens to wipe out [humanity] man. The challenge is not one of a single continent alone because Africa cannot be quarantined. The trouble is that AIDS has no cure -- and thus even the West has stakes in the AIDS challenge. Once sub-Saharan Africa is wiped out, it shall not be long before another continent is on the brink of extinction. Sure as death, Africa's time has run out, signaling the beginning of the end of the black race and maybe the human race.
Water 1AC
Advantage 2: Failed States
Water shortages cause economic decline in Africa – 11 million are on the brink of death
Financial Mail (South Africa), 3/31/06, Worldwide water woes, Lexis
Water looks set to emerge as the new oil in the 21st century, as dwindling water supplies are becoming on economic drain on countries. As with so many other matters economic, the developed world is using most of the globe's resources and has access to more of it than the developing nations, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. In Africa almost 40% of the population have no access to running water or sanitation services, while that figure is less than 5% in North America, according to the World Water Council. Industrialised states under the OECD umbrella also use a huge 1550m³ of water per capita a year compared with a mere 100m³ in Africa. The economic impact of water shortages and droughts is also far greater in the developing world. The World Bank, quoted in the Financial Times, estimates for example that Kenya's GDP fell by 16% during the drought that hit the country between 1998 and 2000. The current drought in the horn of Africa threatens the survival of 11m people. The World Health Organisation estimates that the lack of access to sanitation and clean water knocks at least US$556bn/year off the world's potential growth rate - 1% of global GDP. In the developed world the impact is also felt, albeit less severe. US authorities put drought-related losses at between $6bn and $8bn/year, while agricultural losses linked to the 2003 water shortages in Europe were estimated at $13bn, says the Financial Times.
Sub-Saharan economic decline causes state failure
Jeffrey D. Sachs, director, Center for Intl Development, 2001, Washington Quarterly, the Strategic Significance of Global Inequality, Project Muse
The most comprehensive study of state failure, carried out by the State Failure Task Force established by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1994, confirms the importance of economic underpinnings to state failure. 3 The [End Page 188] task force gave formal definition to state failure (as a case of revolutionary war, ethnic war, genocides or politicides, and adverse or disruptive regime changes) and counted all cases during 1957-1994 in countries of 500,000 people or more. The Task Force identified 113 cases of state failure. Of all the explanatory variables examined, three were most significant: infant mortality rates, suggesting that overall low levels of material well-being are a significant contributor to state failure; openness of the economy, in that more economic linkages with the rest of the world diminish the chances of state failure; and democracy, with democratic countries showing less propensity to state failure than authoritarian regimes. The linkage to democracy has another strong economic aspect, however, because other research has shown strongly that the probability of a country being democratic rises significantly with its per capita income level. 4 In refinements of the basic study, the task force found that in sub-Saharan Africa, where many societies live on the edge of subsistence, temporary economic setbacks (measured as a decline in gross domestic product per capita) were significant predictors of state failure. They also found that "partial" democracies, usually in transition from authoritarian to fully democratic institutions, were particularly vulnerable to collapse. Similar conclusions have been reached in studies on African conflict, which find that poverty and slow economic growth raise the probability of conflict. 5
Water 1AC
Failed states in sub-Saharan Africa allow terrorist organizations to acquire and use nuclear weapons
Thomas Dempsey, Director of African Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College, April 2006, Counterterrorism In African Failed States: Challenges And Potential Solutions, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub649.pdf
Terrorist groups that are the focus of the current GWOT display the characteristics of a network organization with two very different types of cells: terrorist nodes and terrorist hubs.1 Terrorist nodes are small, closely knit local cells that actually commit terrorist acts in the areas in which they are active. Terrorist hubs provide ideological guidance, financial support, and access to resources enabling node attacks. An examination of three failed states in Sub-Saharan Africa— Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Somalia—reveals the presence of both types of cells and furnishes a context for assessing the threat they pose to the national interests of the United States and its partners. Al Qaeda established terrorist hubs in Liberia and Sierra Leone to exploit the illegal diamond trade, laundering money, and building connections with organized crime and the illegal arms trade. In Somalia, Al Qaeda and Al Ittihad Al Islami established terrorist hubs that supported terrorist operations throughout East Africa. A new organization led by Aden Hashi ’Ayro recruited terrorist nodes that executed a series of attacks on Western nongovernment organization (NGO) employees and journalists within Somalia. Analysis of these groups suggests that while the terrorist nodes in failed states pose little threat to the interests of the United States or its GWOT partners, terrorist hubs operating in the same states may be highly dangerous. The hubs observed in these three failed states were able to operate without attracting the attention or effective sanction of the United States or its allies. They funneled substantial financial resources, as well as sophisticated weaponry, to terrorist nodes operating outside the failed states in which the hubs were located. The threat posed by these hubs to U.S. national interests and to the interests of its partners is significant, and is made much more immediate by the growing risk that nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) will fall into terrorist hands. The burgeoning proliferation of nuclear weapons and the poor security of some existing nuclear stockpiles make it more likely that terrorist groups like Al Qaeda will gain access to nuclear weapons. The accelerating Iranian covert nuclear weapons program, estimated to produce a nuclear capability within as little as one year, is especially disturbing in this context.2 A failed state terrorist hub that secures access to a nuclear weapon could very conceivably place that weapon in the hands of a terrorist node in a position to threaten vital American national interests.
Lack of water yields terrorist recruitment
Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman The Millennium Water Alliance, 5/16/2007, CQ Congressional Quaterly, AFRICA’S WATER CRISIS, Lexis
Though money cannot buy happiness, the total lack of it does produce severe unhappiness. People living in extreme poverty on less than $2 a day are in that posture because of the lack of access to clean water and sanitation. Human dignity is lost and hope is non-existent. Lack of clean water leads to stagnant economies and failed states. Population growth can be a positive unless education and job opportunities are lacking as a result of lack of access to water. Uneducated and/or jobless young men with no other opportunities are primed for recruitment into terrorist cells.
Water 1AC
Terrorism will cause extinction.
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, Al-Ahram Political Analyst, 8/26/2004, Extinction!, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm
What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This would lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.
The plan solves terrorism by improving the perception of US presence – the US is key
Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman, The Millennium Water Alliance, and Donald M. Payne, US Representative, June 29, 2005, CQ Congressional Testimony, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HENRY J. HYDE (R-IL) HOLDS HEARING ON GLOBAL WATER CRISIS, Lexis
When we talked to them and we said to the assembled community, "We're from the U.S., our friends in America understand that water is life, and because we love them, and they along with USAID have provided the money for MWA to work in your community and provide this new water source," and I want to tell you, if everybody could have been there, the vote would have been 100 percent out of the Congress, because the people clapped, they jumped, they danced, and they screamed their support for the United States. There was no animosity. This was basic grass roots diplomacy in action. They told us later that the only time their community had seen aid before from the United States was in times of famine, but now USAID, with us, has come with water to help them produce their own crops and avoid the pangs of famine, and I could do nothing better to support this bill than give you that good report. PAYNE (?): Would the gentleman yield? (UNKNOWN): Yes. PAYNE (?): That was just the point I was trying to make earlier when I talked about the very small amount that was going into sub- Saharan Africa, and if we can show that America cares, if we show projects like this, if we show people that we do want to see their children grow up and women be free and so forth, we can prevent the 95 percent that we're spending in Iraq and the West Bank and all the rest. In other words, if we can nip the grounds for terrorism in the bud by small programs like that, then we don't have to spend the 95 percent over there.
Water 1AC
Advantage 3: Water Wars
Water resources are decreasing in sub Saharan Africa where conflict could spring up any time
Kevin Watkins and Anders Bertnell, International New Herald, 8/24/2006, “A Global Problem: How to Avoid War Over Water”, http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/23/opinion/edwatkins.php
Water conflicts are invariably shaped by local factors. But the sheer scale of these conflicts makes it impossible to dismiss them as isolated events. What we are dealing with is a global crisis generated by decades of gross mismanagement of water resources. The facts behind the crisis tell their own story. By 2025, more than two billion people are expected to live in countries that find it difficult or impossible to mobilize the water resources needed to meet the needs of agriculture, industry and households. Population growth, urbanization and the rapid development of manufacturing industries are relentlessly increasing demand for finite water resources. Symptoms of the resulting water stress are increasingly visible. In northern China, rivers now run dry in their lower reaches for much of the year. In parts of India, groundwater levels are falling so rapidly that from 10 percent to 20 percent of agricultural production is under threat. >From the Aral Sea in Central Asia to Lake Chad in sub-Saharan Africa, lakes are shrinking at an unprecedented rate. In effect, a large section of humanity is now living in regions where the limits of sustainable water use have been breached - and where water-based ecological systems are collapsing.
As conflicts over water grow wider and bigger, better efforts to sanitize the drinking water can reduce the competition greatly
Peter H. Gleick, Director of the Global Environment Problem, Summer 1993, “Water and Conflict”, http://www.jstor.org/view/01622889/di008143/00p0085u/0
There is a long history of water-related disputes, from conflicts over access to adequate water supplies to intentional attacks on water systems during wars. Water and water-supply systems have been the roots and instruments of war. Access to shared water supplies has been cut off for political and military reasons. Sources of water supply have been among the goals of military expansionism. And inequities in water use have been the source of regional and international frictions and tensions. These conflicts will continue—and in some places grow more intense—as growing populations demand more water for agricultural, industrial, and economic development. While various regional and international legal mechanisms exist for reducing water-related tensions, these mechanisms have never received the international support or attention necessary to resolve many conflicts over water. Indeed, there is growing evidence that existing international water law may be unable to handle the strains of ongoing and future problems.6 In addition to improving international law in this area, efforts by international aid agencies to ensure access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation can reduce the competition for limited water supplies and the economic and social impacts of widespread waterborne diseases. In regions with shared water supplies, third-party participation in resolving water disputes, either through UN agencies or regional commissions, can also effectively end conflicts.
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Water scarcity causes enough violence to threaten the socio-political status of the countries and has fueled many regional wars in Sub- Saharan Africa. These conflicts spill over and could turn into larger wars
Sandra L. Postel and Aaron T. Wolf, Sandra is the director of the Global Water Policy Project, September-October 2001,
“Dehydrating Conflict”, http://www.jstor.org/view/00157228/sp040005/04x0151u/0,
Lost amidst this perennial debate over whether there will be water wars has been a serious effort to understand precisely how and why tensions develop, beyond the simplistic cause-and-effect equation that water shortages lead to wars. First, whether or not water scarcity causes outright warfare between nations in the years ahead, it already causes enough violence and conflict within nations to threaten social and political stability. And as recent events in the Balkans and sub-Saharan Africa demonstrated, today’s civil conflicts have a nasty habit of spilling over borders and becoming tomorrow’s international wars. Second, water disputes between countries, though typically not leading to war directly, have fueled decades of regional tensions, thwarted economic development, and risked provoking larger conflicts before eventually giving way to cooperation.
African conflict will lead to nuclear war.
Jeffrey Deutsch, Political Risk Consulting and Research Firm Focusing on Russia and Eastern Europe, 11/18/02, Setting the Stage for World War III, Rabid Tiger Newsletter, http://www.rabidtigers.com/rtn/newsletterv2n9.html
The Rabid Tiger Project believes that a nuclear war is most likely to start in Africa. Civil wars in the Congo (the country formerly known as Zaire), Rwanda, Somalia and Sierra Leone, and domestic instability in Zimbabwe, Sudan and other countries, as well as occasional brushfire and other wars (thanks in part to "national" borders that cut across tribal ones) turn into a really nasty stew. We've got all too many rabid tigers and potential rabid tigers, who are willing to push the button rather than risk being seen as wishy-washy in the face of a mortal threat and overthrown. Geopolitically speaking, Africa is open range. Very few countries in Africa are beholden to any particular power. South Africa is a major exception in this respect – not to mention in that she also probably already has the Bomb. Thus, outside powers can more easily find client states there than, say, in Europe where the political lines have long since been drawn, or Asia where many of the countries (China, India, Japan) are powers unto themselves and don't need any "help," thank you. Thus, an African war can attract outside involvement very quickly. Of course, a proxy war alone may not induce the Great Powers to fight each other. But an African nuclear strike can ignite a much broader conflagration, if the other powers are interested in a fight. Certainly, such a strike would in the first place have been facilitated by outside help – financial, scientific, engineering, etc. Africa is an ocean of troubled waters, and some people love to go fishing.
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Plan: The United States federal government should appropriate new funds for the provision of non-private assistance to sub-Saharan Africa through the Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005.
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Observation 3: Solvency
Though the Water for the Poor Act made safe water an important part of US foreign assistance, under funding and limited implementation have kept the program from being fully effective
Peter Lochery, Care Water Team Leader, 5/16/07, Beyond the Status Quo: Bringing Down Barriers to Water and Sanitation Provision in Africa through Implementation of the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act,
http://www.care.org/newsroom/articles/2007/05/lochery_water_testimony.pdf, Boxer
The Water for the Poor Act made the provision of safe water, sanitation, and hygiene an explicit objective of US foreign assistance and called for the State Department to develop a comprehensive strategy outlining how the US would go about expanding equitable access to water and sanitation in countries where the need is greatest. However, implementation of the Act has been limited and has not been backed by the increased appropriations required to realize the goals encompassed in it.
The passage of the Water for the Poor Act presents an opportunity around which the US can bring expertise gained through programs in other regions of the world and significantly expanded funding to bear in sub-Saharan Africa. The strategy required by the Act also helps address gaps in responding to the African water crisis. These include: designating high priority recipient countries toward which funding should be targeted; determining which of those countries are truly committed to instituting the necessary reforms and enhancing accountability to their citizens; developing a system of measurable goals, benchmarks and timetables for monitoring US foreign assistance; and coordinating assistance with other donor countries.
The Water for the Poor Act provides the infrastructure and governance programs in order to provide clean water resources to sub-Saharan African countries, which improves economic growth, and promotes gender equality, and improves sharing between countries with water resources
Olav Kjorven, State Secretary for International Development for the United Nations Development Programme, 6/29/05, Committee on International Relations, http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa22262.000/hfa22262_0.htm#0, Boxer
Chairman Hyde, Ranking Member, Mr. Lantos, Distinguished Members of the House Committee on International Relations, I would like to thank you for your invitation to speak on the important issues that the Water for the Poor Act of 2005 addresses, and welcome this opportunity to brief you on the work of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), to increase access to safe water and sanitation in developing countries
For over 40 years, UNDP has been working to support the poor across the globe to gain access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation as part of the organization's broad development agenda.
First and foremost, our experience shows that improved access to water services and improved sanitation, coupled with sound management of water resources, contributes to improved livelihoods and productivity, improved human health, higher economic growth, and gender equality. Investments in water and sanitation are strong development drivers.
There is no development possible without water, and there is no healthy ecosystem that does not depend on water for its survival. We are convinced that water is not only vital for life and essential for development, but also a priority for contributing to the achievement of all of the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs.
We ask ourselves can poverty and hunger be eradicated or maternal health improved, or child mortality reduced, or gender inequalities addressed without improved access to water and sanitation?
The answer is no. These goals cannot be met without water and sanitation, and this is one of the strongest and most important reasons why in my view the Water for the Poor Act of 2005 is so
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important.
The table at the end of my written brief provides an illustration of the critical links between water and all the other MDGs. It also includes an illustration of the link between access to water and sanitation, and gender equality, and empowerment of women.
In Yemen, for instance, with support from the UNDP, women's groups represented by the Supreme Council for Women worked with the Ministry of Planning, and in close coordination with other international agencies, to bring gender prospectus into their country's poverty reduction strategy.
However, Mr. Chairman, our experience also shows that local capacity constraints often pose a severe limitation to the achievement of the MDGs. This is where the focus of UNDP's water program lies, highly complimentary to that of UNICEF.
Through our effective water governance program, we aim to address some of the capacity constraints that exist in developing countries, to improve access to water and sanitation services.
Effective water governance provides an enabling environment through policy, legal, and institutional frameworks for sustainable, equitable, and economically efficient use and development of water resources.
This includes support to strengthen the protection and management of the water sources and catchment areas that all water supplies fundamentally depend on. We have to make sure that there is water running through the pipes that we build.
UNDP supports the development of good practice mechanisms to promote integrated management of water resources. Our experience also shows that political will and commitment, motivated with enough awareness and backed with sufficient capacity, are key elements that determine the capabilities of governments to formulate integrated water resource management plans, and not the least to implement them.
With support from UNDP, several Arab countries, including Egypt and Lebanon, have improved their national water policies and integrated water resource management plans.
With the support from the U.S. State Department, our water governance program also promotes increased cooperation between countries that share water resources, such as in the Nile, the Mekong, the Niger, and other strategic river basins.
The U.S. State Department's support to UNDP Transboundary Rivers Program is a critical element to promote peace and stability in many regions. Water is a source of tension between countries, but it can also be an entry point for collaboration.
This program is highly complimentary to the global environment facility if they are in international waters, where the entry point is to protect the ecological integrity of shared water resources.
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Ending US privatization of water is key to the success of the Water for the Poor Act. Current US policies aim at full cost recovery, which prices the water out of reach for the poor. Water funds must promote equitable access
Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of the food and water watch, 4/23/07, http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/right/poor-act, Boxer
In order to implement the Water for the Poor Act, Food & Water Watch is encouraging Congress to increase the funds available in the Development Assistance Account for FY08 by $500 million. In order to fulfill the intent of the act, these funds must be additional appropriations, earmarked for water and sanitation.
Our comment on the Department of State report is split into themes that are of priority to our mission on water. We submitted comments as part of a group lead by CARE in 2006, prior to the commission of the report.
Affordability and Cost Recovery
Your report emphasizes the need to “provide affordable and equitable access.” We could not agree more with this guiding principle and encourage the Department of State to make this a strong policy directive in the implementation of all water investments undertaken with U.S. funds.
Our research has shown that full cost recovery puts the price of water out of reach for the poor. This has particularly happened preparation for or as a result of privatization of water utilities. Most utilities in developing countries, as in the United States, do not fully recover cost, but subsidize provision. Subsidies enable utilities to provide water access to the entire community, not just those who can afford the full cost of delivery. Cost recovery, as proposed in the report, would encourage continued marginalization of poor households, particularly of women and children. U.S. funds must first and foremost promote access, not full cost recovery.
As identified by the report, the lowest cost option for extending service to the poor in urban areas is extending existing networks. To reach the poor external funds are crucial. Such funds should assist countries in providing operational subsidies that target the needs of the unserved poor. In particular, the United States should provide subsidies for free or low cost initial connections. It is furthermore crucial that U.S. funds are used to support rate structures that prioritize the needs of the poor.
Those without piped water access often purchase their water from water vendors. When cost recovery policies drive up the price of water their costs multiply. Those relying on vended water are often the poorest households. The United States should support provision of water that is affordable, in particular to those living on less than $2/day. Blueprint cost recovery policies undermine the spirit of the Water for the Poor Act.
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Water privatization marginalizes the poor and leads to widespread illness – ending privatization is key to solving case
Renu Mandhane, staff writer for awid, 05, “What is the Effect of Water Privatization on the Right to Water?”, Association for Women’s Rights in Development, http://www.awid.org/go.php?stid=822
Privatization has been touted by neoliberal economists as a means to streamline water delivery and make it more efficient, with the long-term benefits of reduced public debt and improved management of the national budget. The goal of privatization is usually “full cost recovery” for water service provision—meaning that the users of water bear the full cost of its delivery through payments for water. Water privatization initiatives are often a condition of the World Bank and IMF loan money received by developing countries.
Recently, the negative impact of water privatization has been chronicled in the media due to widespread protests in Bolivia and South Africa. The most serious negative impact of privatization has been a dramatic increase in the price of water, often such that marginal members of society are unable to afford water for personal use. Those who cannot afford water often turn to unsanitary sources to fulfill their needs, resulting in increased incidence of water-born disease. Even where people can afford to pay for water, there have been incidences of private corporations with low quality standards having supplied unsafe water that has lead to widespread illness.
The US has the best technology to guarantee Africa clean water
The Water for the Poor Act, 2005, “Senator Paul Simon: Water for the Poor Act of 2005”, http://www.state.gov/g/oes/rls/rpts/67447.htm
U.S. federal agencies are global leaders in many areas of biological, physical or social science and engineering and technology expertise related to water that is of great applicability around the world. In areas such as pollution prevention, satellite remote sensing, global information systems, modeling and simulation, and high-performance computing are all niches where U.S. water-related science and technology leads the world. The U.S. is also well-positioned to help countries to augment their water supplies using desalination and wastewater recycling technologies through sharing new technologies. Many of these activities are appropriate for transforming countries where institutions exist for productive science and technology partnerships. Possible countries include India, Mexico, and Pakistan.
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The plan solves poverty, disease, and economic growth without resorting to doctors– countries are asking for assistance
Malcolm S. Morris, Chairman, The Millennium Water Alliance, 6/29/2005, CQ Congressional Testimony, THE GLOBAL WATER CRISIS, Lexis
As a businessman, I understand the many competing needs leaders are faced with. However, if no provision is first made for clean water, I predict no country will rise out of its poverty and will always be an international burden. Without clean water, those countries will be back at a future G8 table with the same request for debt relief once again. Faced with 50% of the hospital beds of the world filled because of water related disease, 80% of premature death and sickness from bad water and huge losses of labor hours, we have a silent tsunami that buries any potential for economic development. As a humane society we want to throw every thing we have at treating the illnesses. However, we must instead vaccinate against the illness. That vaccination is clean water. Peter Agre of Johns Hopkins received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2003 for the discovery that every single cell of the human body contains a channel through which only one thing can pass and that is water. Water channels are key to such crucial activities as making the heart beat, the brain function and the limbs move. With 100 trillion cells in your body, there are one hundred trillion ways to get sick without clean water. Dr. Richard L. Garrison, Professor, University of Texas-Houston, Health Science, Department of Family Practice and Country Medicine has written a plan on a universal coverage health system. From that, I quote: "By any account, the first, most effective implementation would be the provision of pure drinking water. Therefore, LEVEL ONE of the vertically integrated healing arts is the provision of pure drinking water. This must include every individual universally, because disease in a society can radiate out from any contaminated focus. Every citizen must be made fully aware of the preciousness of this resource so that they will guard their right and their responsibility. Most people would not consider drinking water issues to be the business of the physician. However, everyone would admit upon reflection that the things considered by most folk to be appropriate to the physician are not nearly as effective at preventing or treating disease as is the provision of pure drinking water. Therefore, if drinking water is not an issue for the health system, then it must be conceded that other systems have more impact on health than does the health system. This ought not to be! Therefore, the vertically integrated healing arts should start at the drinking water level." I will be happy to provide a full copy of this paper. Adequate supplies of clean water provide a huge benefit for the whole global community as well. The SARS epidemic spread due to lack of adequate quantities of water for simple hand washing. HIV/Aids patients cannot be successfully treated without access to clean water and their caregivers are exposed as well. In the Central African Republic, there is an outbreak of a new disease called Hepatitis E. This disease is being spread through the water and has reached Chad and into Darfur. I fully encourage the passage of H.R. 1973. We must quit spending dollars to fix recurrent problems and not addressing the root cause. It is much less costly to address the problem and fix it. Not one member of Congress would be reelected if members of their district were told that there were better things to spend money on than clean water on if their constituents did not have access to clean water. The people are no different in other countries which we let languish without clean water, unable to develop and staying in squalor and forever therefore dependent on us. The Water for the Poor Act will make it a major objective of united States foreign assistance to promote good health, economic development, poverty reduction, women's empowerment and environmental sustainability by providing assistance to expand access to safe water and sanitation and improving hygiene for people around the world.
HM HUTCHINSON/PANG
OBSERVATION ONE: INHERENCY
AFRICAN DISEASE SURVEILLANE IS FRAGMENTED, CRUSHING THE ABILITY TO DETECT AND MONITOR DISEASES EFFECTIVELY
Jonathan R. Davis and Joshua Lederberg (Editors), Forum on Emerging Infections, Board on Global Health, Institute of Medicine (Authoring organization), 2001, “Emerging Infectious Diseases from the Global to the Local Perspective”, p. 52-53, http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10084
As a region, Africa is characterized by the greatest infectious disease burden and, overall, the weakest public health infrastructure among all regions in the world. Frequently, vertically oriented disease surveillance programs at the national level and above in Africa often result in too much paperwork, too many different instructions, different terminologies, too many administrators, and conflicting priorities. Streamlined communications, strengthened public health surveillance, the use of standard case definitions, criteria for minimum data requirements, and emphasis on feedback through integrated forms, as well as research and training opportunities, are among the important tools available to improve the situation. Yet, efforts to establish fully more effective public health infrastructures may take a period of years to decades.
The aim in Africa is to identify a group of priority diseases categorized as epidemic-prone diseases, diseases targeted for eradication or elimination, and other diseases of public health importance. The challenge will be to integrate surveillance and epidemic preparedness and response activities for these priority diseases, especially when there are weakened ministries of health. Bilateral and multilateral agreements, as well as partnerships with nongovernmental organizations and commercial interests, are among the means being explored to strengthen disease surveillance and response activities, to transfer epidemiological and microbiological skills, and to facilitate timely recognition of these disease outbreaks and their control. Among the promising roles provided by global disease surveillance is the integration of new technology tools in resource-poor environments, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, for the development of an early-warning system based on remotely sensed (satellite) data for Rift Valley fever surveillance.
AFRICAN SURVEILLANCE LACKS TRAINED PERSONNEL AND LAB FACILITIES.
Declan Butler, senior reporter at Nature, 3-2-06, Nature 440 pp. 6-7, “Disease Surveillance needs a revolution”
With avian flu spreading around the world at a frightening rate, scientists are welcoming an international proposal for state-of-the-art labs to monitor emerging diseases in developing countries. But they add that the bird-flu crisis has exposed glaring deficiencies that demand a radical rethink of the world's veterinary and disease-surveillance systems.
Avian flu is now endemic across large parts of Asia, and in the past few weeks has exploded across Europe and into Africa. "H5N1 has focused the spotlight of the world on disease surveillance, and it's showing up all the pimples and warts," says Bill Davenhall, who develops health mapping schemes for countries and is head of health at ESRI, a geographic information systems company in Redlands, California.
Developing countries, in particular, lack decent human-disease surveillance, and animal monitoring is often virtually nonexistent, with few basic laboratory and epidemiological resources available. "On the ground in Indonesia, there is no systematic programme at all," says Peter Roeder, a field consultant with the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "It's just a bloody mess."
It is a problem that the developed world cannot ignore, because a disease that emerges in Bangkok or Jakarta could ultimately trigger a global disaster. So researchers at the US Department of Defense have suggested setting up a network of high-tech labs in developing countries to monitor cases of infectious disease (see page 25). The labs would be modelled on the US network of infectious-disease labs, such as the naval research unit NAMRU-2 in Jakarta. But they would be funded by the international community
Such a network could vastly speed up and improve the diagnosis of viruses such as H5N1 when outbreaks occur, says Roeder. He points out that misdiagnosis of H5N1 as Newcastle disease in recent outbreaks in Nigeria and India led to long delays in control measures.
Mark Savey, an epidemiologist who heads animal health at France's food-safety agency, also welcomes the proposal, but cautions against the "mirage of technology" in surveillance. "You don't need satellites, PCR and geographic information systems to fight outbreaks," he says. The labs' top priority should be building large teams of local staff, who are familiar with the region and its practices, he argues. "If you do not have that, then surveillance will stay in the Middle Ages."
Savey recalls his trip to Russia last summer as part of a European team investigating outbreaks of avian flu. "You have a paper Michelin map; you have people who speak the language; you put red circles on outbreaks; and you use a pen and paper to compare them with things like the dates of market openings, and with how outbreaks line up with railways." Such local knowledge is crucial to interpreting data, he says. "If you don't know what the Trans-Siberian Express is like, with people cooped up for days, exchanging chickens and eggs at every stop, you would never guess that it was the Trans-Siberian that mainly spread avian flu across Russia."
Roeder agrees that the focus must be local. "No amount of setting international guidelines and publishing global action plans is going to help when you have an organization within the country that doesn't know what to do," he says
ADVANTAGE ONE: DISEASES
THE DANGER OF NEW AND REMERGING DISEASES IS GROWING—THEY QUICKLY SPREAD ACROSS BORDERS MAKING THEM DIFFICULT TO CONTAIN.
US Government Accountability Office, 9-04, “EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Review of State and Federal Disease Surveillance Efforts” [Sigrist]
Infectious diseases account for millions of deaths every year. Although the
great majority of these deaths occur in developing countries, infectious
diseases are not confined by international borders and therefore present a
substantial threat to populations in all parts of the world, including the
United States. In recent years, the threat posed by infectious diseases has
grown. New diseases, unknown in the United States just a decade ago,
such as West Nile virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS),
have emerged, and known infectious diseases once considered in decline
have reappeared with increased frequency. Furthermore, there is always
the potential for an infectious disease to develop into a widespread
outbreak—which could have significant consequences. The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that if an influenza
pandemic1 were to occur in the United States, it could cause an estimated
314,000 to 734,000 hospitalizations and 89,000 to 207,000 deaths, with
associated costs ranging from $71 to $167 billion.2 In addition to naturally
occurring infectious disease outbreaks, there is also the threat posed by
the deployment of infectious disease pathogens3 as weapons of war or
instruments of terror.
SPECIFICALLY, SUB SAHARAN AFRICA HAS BECOME AN “IDEAL INCUBATOR” FOR THESE PATHOGENS TO GROW STRONGER.
The Baltimore Sun, 05- 16-05 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002276179_diseases16.html?syndication=rss
Some of the viruses are notorious, such as Ebola and HIV. Others have less familiar names: Marburg and Lassa fever. But they all have emerged in recent decades from sub-Saharan Africa, perplexing scientists and, in the case of HIV, killing millions. Africa is recognized as an ideal incubator for new pathogens: It has rapidly growing human populations and high biodiversity, along with widespread poverty, poor medical care and, in many countries, armed conflict that forces civilians to flee far from their homes. "For every virus that we know about, there are hundreds that we don't know anything about," said Dr. Dan Bausch, a professor at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine who studies Marburg, Ebola and other emerging diseases in Africa. "Most of them, we probably don't even know that they're out there." Scientists remain especially baffled by Marburg. Since 1967, the Marburg virus and its equally lethal cousin, Ebola, have killed more than 1,600 people. The latest Marburg outbreak has killed at least 277 people in Angola, hundreds of miles from where it last emerged four years ago, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "To be honest with you, I have no indication what the source is," said Dr. Pierre Formenty, the World Health Organization's senior Marburg expert, speaking from the epicenter of the outbreak, in Uige, Angola. "That was not our first priority. Now we are working on it."
SUBPOINT A: SUPERDISEASES
SEVERAL FACTORS INFLUENCE THE GROWTH AND SPREAD OF PATHOGENS- POPULATION GROWTH, CLIMATE CHANGE, DRUG RESISTANCE, LIVESTOCK HANDLING—ARE ONLY A FEW OF THE THINGS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO MUTATIONS OF DISEASES.
Denise Grady, staff writer, 08/20/02, “Managing Planet Earth” http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C0CE6D6103DF933A1575BC0A9649C8B63
Researchers say West Nile may be just one example of an infectious disease whose incidence and geographic range have expanded because of human activities affecting the mosquitoes, birds, rodents and other animals that help spread the infection. Since the mid-1970's -- a time when it was widely assumed that most infectious diseases had been conquered or at least controlled -- a troubling array of previously unknown diseases has emerged, including Lyme disease, AIDS, mad cow disease, the Ebola virus, Legionnaires' disease and a host of others. In addition, old diseases like yellow fever, malaria and dengue fever have reappeared in their former haunts and spread to new areas. Some microbes, like the ones that cause tuberculosis, malaria and food poisoning, have become dangerously drug resistant. In a 2000 report, the World Health Organization identified a half-dozen factors that could affect the distribution and emergence of infectious diseases. The factors include ecological changes like those from global warming and changes in land use; human factors like population growth, migration, war, sexual behavior, intravenous drug use and overcrowding; international travel and commerce; technological and industrial factors like food processing, livestock handling and organ transplants; microbial changes like the development of antibiotic resistance; and breakdowns in public health measures like sanitation, vaccination and insect control.
THESE MUTATIONS ARE GROWING THREATENING AS DISEASES ARE BECOMING INCREASINGLY DRUG RESISTANCE.
David L Heymann and Guénaël R Rodierthe, WHO's Executive Director for Communicable Diseases, Dec. 01, The Lancet, “Hot spots in a wired world: WHO surveillance of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases”
On another front, resistance to inexpensive and effective
antimicrobial drugs has emerged and spread at an alarming
rate, raising the prospect that many common diseases could
become prohibitively expensive or impossible to treat.27 The
bacterial infections that contribute most to human disease
are also those in which emerging resistance is of most
concern: diarrhoeal diseases such as dysentery, respiratory
tract infections, including pneumococcal pneumonia and
multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, sexually transmitted
infections such as gonorrhoea, and a host of hospitalacquired
infections that are notoriously difficult and
expensive to treat. Among the major infectious diseases, the
development of resistance to drugs commonly used to treat
malaria is of particular concern, as is the emerging resistance
to anti-HIV drugs. Most alarming of all are microbes such as
Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhi that have
accumulated resistance genes to virtually all currently
available drugs and have the potential to cause untreatable
infections, thus raising the spectre of a post-antibiotic era.
Even if the pharmaceutical industry were to step up efforts
to develop new drugs immediately, current trends suggest
that some diseases may have very few and, in some cases, no
effective therapies within the next 10 years.27 Moreover, if
current trends continue, many important medical and
surgical procedures, including cancer chemotherapy, bone
marrow and organ transplantation, and hip and other joint
replacements, could no longer be undertaken out of fear that
the associated compromise of immune function might place
patients at risk of acquiring a difficult to treat and ultimately
fatal infection. Opportunistic infections in AIDS patients
would likewise become an especially difficult challenge.
EVENTUALLY THESE MUTATIONS WILL GET OUT OF CONTROL—CULMINATING IN PLANETARY EXTINCTION.
South China Morning Post 96
((Hong Kong) January 4, 1996 SECTION: Pg. 15 HEADLINE: Leading the way to a cure for AIDS BYLINE: Kavita Daswani meets a scientist working on a super vaccine to fight AIDS and more deadly viruses yet to come, l/n)
Despite the importance of the discovery of the "facilitating" cell, it is not what Dr Ben-Abraham wants to talk about. There is a much more pressing medical crisis at hand - one he believes the world must be alerted to: the possibility of a virus deadlier than HIV. If this makes Dr Ben-Abraham sound like a prophet of doom, then he makes no apology for it. AIDS, the Ebola outbreak which killed more than 100 people in Africa last year, the flu epidemic that has now affected 200,000 in the former Soviet Union - they are all, according to Dr Ben-Abraham, the "tip of the iceberg". Two decades of intensive study and research in the field of virology have convinced him of one thing: in place of natural and man-made disasters or nuclear warfare, humanity could face extinction because of a single virus, deadlier than HIV. "An airborne virus is a lively, complex and dangerous organism," he said. "It can come from a rare animal or from anywhere and can mutate constantly. If there is no cure, it affects one person and then there is a chain reaction and it is unstoppable. It is a tragedy waiting to happen." That may sound like a far-fetched plot for a Hollywood film, but Dr Ben -Abraham said history has already proven his theory. Fifteen years ago, few could have predicted the impact of AIDS on the world. Ebola has had sporadic outbreaks over the past 20 years and the only way the deadly virus - which turns internal organs into liquid - could be contained was because it was killed before it had a chance to spread. Imagine, he says, if it was closer to home: an outbreak of that scale in London, New York or Hong Kong. It could happen anytime in the next 20 years - theoretically, it could happen tomorrow. The shock of the AIDS epidemic has prompted virus experts to admit "that something new is indeed happening and that the threat of a deadly viral outbreak is imminent", said Joshua Lederberg of the Rockefeller University in New York, at a recent conference. He added that the problem was "very serious and is getting worse". Dr Ben-Abraham said: "Nature isn't benign. The survival of the human species is not a preordained evolutionary programme. Abundant sources of genetic variation exist for viruses to learn how to mutate and evade the immune system." He cites the 1968 Hong Kong flu outbreak as an example of how viruses have outsmarted human intelligence. And as new "mega-cities" are being developed in the Third World and rainforests are destroyed, disease-carrying animals and insects are forced into areas of human habitation. "This raises the very real possibility that lethal, mysterious viruses would, for the first time, infect humanity at a large scale and imperil the survival of the human race," he said.
Disease surveillance is the best defense against disease
David L Heymann and Guénaël R Rodierthe, WHO's Executive Director for Communicable Diseases, Dec. 01, The Lancet, “Hot spots in a wired world: WHO surveillance of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases” http://www.3eme-cycle.ch/biologie/JCVillars06/S1%20Heymann/104_Lancet_Hot%20SpotsInAWiredWorld_2001.pdf
In the volatile new milieu of emerging, adapting, and highly mobile pathogens, the best defence is good infectious disease intelligence, on a global scale, gleaned through sensitive surveillance. Surveillance systems keep the world alert to changes in the infectious disease threat and provide the background data needed to detect an unusual event, whether involving an upsurge in cases of a well-known endemic disease, the appearance of a previously unknown pathogen, or an outbreak caused by the deliberate use of a biological agent to cause harm. Because susceptibility to infectious diseases and
the opportunities for infection rapidly increase with poverty, poverty remains the variable most frequently associated with the occurrence of infectious diseases.21 Not surprisingly, outbreaks of both newly identified diseases and well-known epidemic-prone diseases occur most frequently in countries that lack the epidemiological and laboratory
capacity to detect them quickly and contain their spread (figure 2). For this reason, continuing surveillance, supported by strengthening of national capacities, is further needed to keep the international community prepared to provide assistance, in
the interest of defending global health security, whenever needed.
SUB POINT B IS RE-REMERGING DISEASES- THE FLU
[MUTATION OF THE AVIAN FLU IS INEVITABLE—IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME UNTIL IT IS AIRBORNE.
Satish Chandra, Deputy National Security Advisor of India – Center for Strategic Decision Research, 2004
[Global Security: A broader Concept for the 21st Century, 5/7, http://www.csdr.org/2004book /chandra.htm]
If the possibility of the collapse of the thermohaline circulation system is alarming, the possibility of a human-to-human transmittable bird flu pandemic is a nightmare. What makes it so frightening is the fact that it could happen at any time and that we are ill prepared to face it. At current mortality rates, it could result in the sudden death of 15 to 20 percent of mankind. The most severe health crisis in recent years in terms of numbers of deaths was the 1918–1919 influenza epidemic, which in the space of one year caused an estimated 40 million deaths worldwide. Begun in Kansas in March 1918, the epidemic spread to Europe and then to India, Australia, and New Zealand. The virulence and mortality rate of the first wave of the disease, in the spring of 1918, was only slightly above normal levels but the second wave, which began in the fall of 1918, was extraordinarily deadly, with mortality rates of 5 to 20 percent above normal levels. It is believed that the fall strain of the virus came about through genetic mutation and that the genetic structure of the virus was a form of a swine and avian influenza strain. Since 1918, the world has seen several influenza outbreaks, most notably the 1957 Asian flu outbreak and the 1968 Hong Kong flu outbreak, each of which killed a million people. While WHO now has an Influenza Surveillance Program in place as well as an Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Plan, we still need to examine the possibility of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu becoming transmittable from human to human, the outcome of such a situation, and what must be done to address the possibility. Since the end of 2003, outbreaks of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian influenza, or bird flu, have occurred in eight Asian countries, resulting in the loss of 100 million poultry birds. The implications for human health are worrisome because of the extreme pathogenic nature of this virus—it has the capability to infect humans and cause severe illness, with mortality rates of 60 to 70 percent. It has already infected humans three times in the recent past: In 1997 and 2003 in Hong Kong and in 2004 in Vietnam and Thailand. So far the disease has been transmitted only to humans who came in contact with dead or diseased poultry—it has not yet mutated to being capable of human-to-human transmission. The Likelihood of a Pandemic Since the H5N1 strain has not been eliminated from its avian hosts, it is obviously endemic. The risk, therefore, that the virus could take on a new form that would make it capable of human-to- human transmission is considerable, especially because mass vaccinations of chickens, aimed at mitigating the disaster facing poultry farmers, has allowed the virus to continue to circulate among the vaccinated birds. It can thus linger indefinitely in poultry, making the gene mutation required to make it transmittable from human to human an even greater possibility. It could be said that there are three prerequisites for the start of a pandemic: 1) a new virus must emerge against which the general population has little or no immunity; 2) the new virus must be able to replicate in humans and cause disease; and 3) the new virus must be efficiently transmitted from one human to another. Dr. Anarji Asamoa Baah, Assistant Director General, Communicable Diseases, WHO, asserts that, regarding H5N1, the first two prerequisites have already been met, and it is known that the virus can become more transmittable via two mechanisms, “adaptive mutation” and “genetic re-assortment.” Dr. Baah has further contended that re-assortment of H5N1 with a human influenza virus can take place in humans without prior adaptation in other species such as swine. It is clear, therefore, that 1) the H5N1 virus will continue to circulate for a very long time in poultry birds; 2) the threat to public health will be there as long as the virus continues to circulate in poultry birds; 3) should the virus become transmittable from human to human, the consequences for human health worldwide, in the words of Dr. Baah, “could be devastating;” and 4) the world needs to be prepared to respond to the next influenza outbreak. During an Influenza Pandemic Preparedness meeting in Geneva in March 2004, the head of the World Health Organization warned, “We know another pandemic is inevitable. It is coming…we also know that we are unlikely to have enough drugs, vaccines, healthcare workers, and hospital capacity to cope in an ideal way.” On the basis of an epidemiological model project, WHO scientists predict that an influenza pandemic will result in 57 million to 132 million outpatient hospital visits, 1 million to 2.3 million admissions, and between 280,000 and 650,000 deaths in less than two years. The impact on poor nations would be much greater. But I submit that these projections are gross underestimates given the fact that the 1918–1919 influenza epidemic, with mortality rates of a maximum of 20 percent above normal level, caused as many as 40 million deaths. With mortality rates in excess of 60 percent, the H5N1 virus is bound to be much more deadly, particularly because in today’s world of air connectivity, the spread of H5N1 would be much more rapid than that of the 1918 influenza epidemic. Indeed, the death toll could run into hundreds of millions.
AVIAN BIRD FLU WILL KILL BILLIONS.
Satish Chandra, Center for Strategic Decision Research, 2004
[Global Security: A broader Concept for the 21st Century, May 7th http://www.csdr.org/2004book /chandra.htm]
This scenario, as frightening as it is, pales in comparison with what could overtake us by 2007 if the highly pathogenic form of bird flu “H5N1” becomes transmittable human to human; all it would take for this to happen is a simple gene shift in the bird flu virus, which could happen any day. In a globalized world linked by rapid air travel, the disease would spread like a raging forest fire. If it did, it would overwhelm our public health system, cripple our economies, and wipe out a billion people within the space of a few months—a 60 percent mortality rate is estimated.
SURVEILLANCE IS CRITICAL TO MONITOR ANIMAL TRANSFERRED PATHOGENS.
Paul Rincon, BBC News science reporter, 2/20/06, ("'Faster emergence' for diseases", http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4732924.stm)
New infectious diseases are now emerging at an exceptional rate, scientists have told a leading conference in St Louis, US. Humans are accumulating new pathogens at a rate of one per year, they said.
This meant that agencies and governments would have to work harder than ever before to keep on top of the threat, one expert told the BBC. Most of these new infectious diseases, such as avian influenza and HIV/Aids, are coming from other animals. "This accumulation of new pathogens has been going on for millennia - this is how we acquired TB, malaria, smallpox," said Professor Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University Of Edinburgh, UK. "But at the moment, this accumulation does seem to be happening very fast. "So it seems there is something special about modern times - these are good times for pathogens to be invading the human population." Professor Woolhouse has catalogued more than 1,400 different agents of disease in humans; and every year, scientists are discovering one or two new ones.
Some may have been around for a long time and have only just come to light. Others that have emerged recently are entirely new, such as HIV; the virus that causes Sars, and the agent of vCJD. The difference today, say researchers, is the way humans are interacting with other animals in their environment. Changes in land use through, for example, deforestation can bring humans into contact with new pathogens; and, likewise, agricultural changes, such as the use of exotic livestock. Other important drivers include global travel, global trade and hospitalisation. The fast rate at which pathogens are appearing means public health experts will need to work harder than ever to control the spread of emerging disease threats. "The sort of image I want to get away from is the famous statement from the 1960s when the US Surgeon General said, 'diseases were beat'," Professor Woolhouse told the BBC News website. "Pathogens are evolving ways to combat our control methods. The picture is changing and looks as if it will continue to. We're going to have to run as fast as we can to stay in the same place." He added: "We need surveillance. Surveillance in most parts of the world for infectious disease is really quite poor - particularly surveillance for infectious diseases in animals such as vermin like rats." Experts were speaking on the subject at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in the Missouri city of St Louis.
ADVANTAGE TWO: BIOTERRORISM
RISK OF A BIOTERROR ATTACK IS HIGH WITH THE WIDESPREAD OFMATERIALS, INFORMATION, AND RECRUITMENT IN ABUNDANCE.
Bruce jones – biosecurity nonststate actors & the need for global cooperation 10/1/06
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/action/showFullText?submitFullText=Full+Text+HTML&doi=10.1111%2Fj.1747-7093.2006.00016.x&cookieSet=1
Unfortunately, both the risk of a bioterror attack and the potential destruction such an attack could cause are significant—and rising.
In assessing the risk of a given type of attack, there are three ingredients to measure: the availability of the relevant materials (from small arms to "loose nukes"); the availability of know-how to overcome the obstacles to using those materials to effect an attack; and the existence of actors with the motive to use them. In the case of bioterrorism, all three ingredients are very much present.
First, there is no shortage of supply. The biological materials for potentially deadly attacks are tremendously widespread. By one estimate, there are more than 10,000 facilities worldwide that legally and legitimately possess materials that, if weaponized, could cause enormous loss of life, morbidity, and erosion of health. Many of these facilities are agricultural and commercial, not engaged in high-tech bioengineering or advanced processes that could reasonably be expected to come with detailed tracking of materials and effective security arrangements.
Second, there is no shortage of know-how. One of the great advantages of the biological and health industry is its widening base of scientists worldwide—an advantage that has an obvious downside, in the existence [in] of a large number of individuals whose knowledge can be tapped for nefarious purposes. Moreover, the technological know-how and materials for weaponizing several biological agents is increasingly available, even to individuals. In preparing background materials for the High-Level Panel, we were warned by some of the world's leading scientists that it would be only a matter of years before the tools required for weaponization were available through the Web. As we completed our work, some of these same scientists alerted us to the fact that they had been mistaken: materials are already available on the Web, often for as little as $50,000.
Third, there is no shortage of groups with motive—at least, as far as we know. Certainly, senior al-Qaeda officials have stated publicly and in captured correspondence between themselves their interest in obtaining nuclear, biological, and chemical materials for use in large-scale terrorist attacks. But the history of modern terrorism suggests that we should be every bit as concerned by groups we don't yet know about. Given the widespread availability and relatively easy accessibility of materials, and the accessibility of equipment and know-how to weaponize them, even fairly unsophisticated groups pose a threat. Indeed, as the science and the technology develops, we face the prospect that eventually small groups and even individuals will possess the technological ability to threaten even powerful states.
A BIOTERRORIST ATTACK WOULD RESULT IN EXTINCTION AS THE ATTACK CAN’T BE CONTAINED AND WILL SPREAD QUICKLY.
Richard Ochs, president of CWWG (Chemical Weapons Working Group), 2002 "biological weapons must be abolished immediately"
Of all the weapons of mass destruction, the genetically engineered biological weapons, many without a known cure or vaccine, are an extreme danger to the continued survival of life on earth. Any perceived military value or deterrence pales in comparison to the great risk these weapons pose just sitting in vials in laboratories.
While a "nuclear winter," resulting from a massive exchange of nuclear weapons, could also kill off most of life on earth and severely compromise the health of future generations, they are easier to control. Biological weapons, on the other hand, can get out of control very easily, as the recent anthrax attacks has demonstrated. There is no way to guarantee the security of these doomsday weapons because very tiny amounts can be stolen or accidentally released and then grow or be grown to horrendous proportions. The Black Death of the Middle Ages would be small in comparison to the potential damage bioweapons could cause.
Abolition of chemical weapons is less of a priority because, while they can also kill millions of people outright, their persistence in the environment would be less than nuclear or biological agents or more localized. Hence, chemical weapons would have a lesser effect on future generations of innocent people and the natural environment. Like the Holocaust, once a localized chemical extermination is over, it is over. With nuclear and biological weapons, the killing will probably never end. Radioactive elements last tens of thousands of years and will keep causing cancers virtually forever.
Potentially worse than that, bio-engineered agents by the hundreds with no known cure could wreck even greater calamity on the human race than could persistent radiation. AIDS and ebola viruses are just a small example of recently emerging plagues with no known cure or vaccine. Can we imagine hundreds of such plagues? HUMAN EXTINCTION IS NOW POSSIBLE.
LUCKILY, DISEASE SURVEILLANCE IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO TAP INTO THE PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM AS AN INTELLIGENCE RESOURCE IN ORDER TO PREVENT AND RAPIDLY RESPOND TO A POTENTIAL ATTACK.
PRNewswire, 8-4,-2005, Nexus (C-5)
"Better medical surveillance tools and stronger links between law enforcement and national health authorities are needed to help protect the world against attacks from terrorists using chemical or biological weapons," emergency preparedness specialist Michael J. Hopmeier told a recent conference on integrating intelligence, policing and health, co-hosted by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
"The public health system presents an enormous untapped resource for intelligence gathering and the protection of national security," said Hopmeier, President of Unconventional Concepts Inc., a Mary Esther, Florida- based engineering and scientific consulting firm specializing in crisis management and integrated federal/civilian disaster response.
"Beyond the roles in prevention and protection played by the public health sector, and their obvious implications for national security, there is also an enormous infrastructure for early warning detection of terrorist threats," Hopmeier said. "For that reason, public health agencies can contribute to both intelligence collection and national security
ADVANTAGE 3: Genocide
There’s a high risk of genocide in Africa
Glew and M.D. Hudson, School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, April 2007, “Gorillas in the midst: the impact of armed conflict on the conservation of protected areas in the sub-saharan Africa”, http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FORX%2FORX41_02%2FS0030605307001755a.pdf&code=8d016e8cd25fd970215d621ee092fd38
Conflict has also become increasingly severe, with the emergence of intense genocidal conflict in Sudan and Rwanda (Jennings, 2001). The majority of wars in sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. 92%of those in 2000) have been civil conflicts fought within the boundaries of a single sovereign state (State Failure, 2001). However, internal wars are no less capable of having international consequences than transboundary conflict. A common feature of civil war is the mass displacement of people, and if this involves movement across an international border, a significant number of the ecological consequences of the conflict may be displaced into the recipient country, as seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after the Rwandan genocide of 1994 (Elongo, 2000). Equally, the unpredictable and unstructured nature of civil war, with the frequent emergence of new belligerent groups and shifting alliances, promotes frequent and repeated population displacements and a disparate security situation at anything above the immediately local level (Hart &
Mwinyihali, 2001; Kalpers 2001a).
[F2]Disease Surveillance is key to detect and stop genocide
Lester Brewslow, Professor Emeritus, Health Services, UCLA School of Public Health, 2002, “Genocide”,
http://health.enotes.com/public-health-enyclopedia/genocide
[F2]Disease Surveillance is key to addressing Genocide
Brian M. Willis and Barry S. Levy, Brian Willis works with the CDC, Barry Levy is the past president of the American Public Health
Association, 8/2/2000, Recognizing the Public Health Impact of Genocide, http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/284/5/612.pdf
HM HUTCHINSON/PANG
OBSERVATION ONE: INHERENCY
AFRICAN DISEASE SURVEILLANE IS FRAGMENTED, CRUSHING THE ABILITY TO DETECT AND MONITOR DISEASES EFFECTIVELY
Jonathan R. Davis and Joshua Lederberg (Editors), Forum on Emerging Infections, Board on Global Health, Institute of Medicine (Authoring organization), 2001, “Emerging Infectious Diseases from the Global to the Local Perspective”, p. 52-53, http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10084
As a region, Africa is characterized by the greatest infectious disease burden and, overall, the weakest public health infrastructure among all regions in the world. Frequently, vertically oriented disease surveillance programs at the national level and above in Africa often result in too much paperwork, too many different instructions, different terminologies, too many administrators, and conflicting priorities. Streamlined communications, strengthened public health surveillance, the use of standard case definitions, criteria for minimum data requirements, and emphasis on feedback through integrated forms, as well as research and training opportunities, are among the important tools available to improve the situation. Yet, efforts to establish fully more effective public health infrastructures may take a period of years to decades.
The aim in Africa is to identify a group of priority diseases categorized as epidemic-prone diseases, diseases targeted for eradication or elimination, and other diseases of public health importance. The challenge will be to integrate surveillance and epidemic preparedness and response activities for these priority diseases, especially when there are weakened ministries of health. Bilateral and multilateral agreements, as well as partnerships with nongovernmental organizations and commercial interests, are among the means being explored to strengthen disease surveillance and response activities, to transfer epidemiological and microbiological skills, and to facilitate timely recognition of these disease outbreaks and their control. Among the promising roles provided by global disease surveillance is the integration of new technology tools in resource-poor environments, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, for the development of an early-warning system based on remotely sensed (satellite) data for Rift Valley fever surveillance.
AFRICAN SURVEILLANCE LACKS TRAINED PERSONNEL AND LAB FACILITIES.
Declan Butler, senior reporter at Nature, 3-2-06, Nature 440 pp. 6-7, “Disease Surveillance needs a revolution”
With avian flu spreading around the world at a frightening rate, scientists are welcoming an international proposal for state-of-the-art labs to monitor emerging diseases in developing countries. But they add that the bird-flu crisis has exposed glaring deficiencies that demand a radical rethink of the world's veterinary and disease-surveillance systems.
Avian flu is now endemic across large parts of Asia, and in the past few weeks has exploded across Europe and into Africa. "H5N1 has focused the spotlight of the world on disease surveillance, and it's showing up all the pimples and warts," says Bill Davenhall, who develops health mapping schemes for countries and is head of health at ESRI, a geographic information systems company in Redlands, California.
Developing countries, in particular, lack decent human-disease surveillance, and animal monitoring is often virtually nonexistent, with few basic laboratory and epidemiological resources available. "On the ground in Indonesia, there is no systematic programme at all," says Peter Roeder, a field consultant with the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). "It's just a bloody mess."
It is a problem that the developed world cannot ignore, because a disease that emerges in Bangkok or Jakarta could ultimately trigger a global disaster. So researchers at the US Department of Defense have suggested setting up a network of high-tech labs in developing countries to monitor cases of infectious disease (see page 25). The labs would be modelled on the US network of infectious-disease labs, such as the naval research unit NAMRU-2 in Jakarta. But they would be funded by the international community
Such a network could vastly speed up and improve the diagnosis of viruses such as H5N1 when outbreaks occur, says Roeder. He points out that misdiagnosis of H5N1 as Newcastle disease in recent outbreaks in Nigeria and India led to long delays in control measures.
Mark Savey, an epidemiologist who heads animal health at France's food-safety agency, also welcomes the proposal, but cautions against the "mirage of technology" in surveillance. "You don't need satellites, PCR and geographic information systems to fight outbreaks," he says. The labs' top priority should be building large teams of local staff, who are familiar with the region and its practices, he argues. "If you do not have that, then surveillance will stay in the Middle Ages."
Savey recalls his trip to Russia last summer as part of a European team investigating outbreaks of avian flu. "You have a paper Michelin map; you have people who speak the language; you put red circles on outbreaks; and you use a pen and paper to compare them with things like the dates of market openings, and with how outbreaks line up with railways." Such local knowledge is crucial to interpreting data, he says. "If you don't know what the Trans-Siberian Express is like, with people cooped up for days, exchanging chickens and eggs at every stop, you would never guess that it was the Trans-Siberian that mainly spread avian flu across Russia."
Roeder agrees that the focus must be local. "No amount of setting international guidelines and publishing global action plans is going to help when you have an organization within the country that doesn't know what to do," he says
ADVANTAGE ONE: DISEASES
THE DANGER OF NEW AND REMERGING DISEASES IS GROWING—THEY QUICKLY SPREAD ACROSS BORDERS MAKING THEM DIFFICULT TO CONTAIN.
US Government Accountability Office, 9-04, “EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Review of State and Federal Disease Surveillance Efforts” [Sigrist]
Infectious diseases account for millions of deaths every year. Although the
great majority of these deaths occur in developing countries, infectious
diseases are not confined by international borders and therefore present a
substantial threat to populations in all parts of the world, including the
United States. In recent years, the threat posed by infectious diseases has
grown. New diseases, unknown in the United States just a decade ago,
such as West Nile virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS),
have emerged, and known infectious diseases once considered in decline
have reappeared with increased frequency. Furthermore, there is always
the potential for an infectious disease to develop into a widespread
outbreak—which could have significant consequences. The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that if an influenza
pandemic1 were to occur in the United States, it could cause an estimated
314,000 to 734,000 hospitalizations and 89,000 to 207,000 deaths, with
associated costs ranging from $71 to $167 billion.2 In addition to naturally
occurring infectious disease outbreaks, there is also the threat posed by
the deployment of infectious disease pathogens3 as weapons of war or
instruments of terror.
SPECIFICALLY, SUB SAHARAN AFRICA HAS BECOME AN “IDEAL INCUBATOR” FOR THESE PATHOGENS TO GROW STRONGER.
The Baltimore Sun, 05- 16-05 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002276179_diseases16.html?syndication=rss
Some of the viruses are notorious, such as Ebola and HIV. Others have less familiar names: Marburg and Lassa fever. But they all have emerged in recent decades from sub-Saharan Africa, perplexing scientists and, in the case of HIV, killing millions. Africa is recognized as an ideal incubator for new pathogens: It has rapidly growing human populations and high biodiversity, along with widespread poverty, poor medical care and, in many countries, armed conflict that forces civilians to flee far from their homes. "For every virus that we know about, there are hundreds that we don't know anything about," said Dr. Dan Bausch, a professor at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine who studies Marburg, Ebola and other emerging diseases in Africa. "Most of them, we probably don't even know that they're out there." Scientists remain especially baffled by Marburg. Since 1967, the Marburg virus and its equally lethal cousin, Ebola, have killed more than 1,600 people. The latest Marburg outbreak has killed at least 277 people in Angola, hundreds of miles from where it last emerged four years ago, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "To be honest with you, I have no indication what the source is," said Dr. Pierre Formenty, the World Health Organization's senior Marburg expert, speaking from the epicenter of the outbreak, in Uige, Angola. "That was not our first priority. Now we are working on it."
SUBPOINT A: SUPERDISEASES
SEVERAL FACTORS INFLUENCE THE GROWTH AND SPREAD OF PATHOGENS- POPULATION GROWTH, CLIMATE CHANGE, DRUG RESISTANCE, LIVESTOCK HANDLING—ARE ONLY A FEW OF THE THINGS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO MUTATIONS OF DISEASES.
Denise Grady, staff writer, 08/20/02, “Managing Planet Earth” http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C0CE6D6103DF933A1575BC0A9649C8B63
Researchers say West Nile may be just one example of an infectious disease whose incidence and geographic range have expanded because of human activities affecting the mosquitoes, birds, rodents and other animals that help spread the infection. Since the mid-1970's -- a time when it was widely assumed that most infectious diseases had been conquered or at least controlled -- a troubling array of previously unknown diseases has emerged, including Lyme disease, AIDS, mad cow disease, the Ebola virus, Legionnaires' disease and a host of others. In addition, old diseases like yellow fever, malaria and dengue fever have reappeared in their former haunts and spread to new areas. Some microbes, like the ones that cause tuberculosis, malaria and food poisoning, have become dangerously drug resistant. In a 2000 report, the World Health Organization identified a half-dozen factors that could affect the distribution and emergence of infectious diseases. The factors include ecological changes like those from global warming and changes in land use; human factors like population growth, migration, war, sexual behavior, intravenous drug use and overcrowding; international travel and commerce; technological and industrial factors like food processing, livestock handling and organ transplants; microbial changes like the development of antibiotic resistance; and breakdowns in public health measures like sanitation, vaccination and insect control.
THESE MUTATIONS ARE GROWING THREATENING AS DISEASES ARE BECOMING INCREASINGLY DRUG RESISTANCE.
David L Heymann and Guénaël R Rodierthe, WHO's Executive Director for Communicable Diseases, Dec. 01, The Lancet, “Hot spots in a wired world: WHO surveillance of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases”
On another front, resistance to inexpensive and effective
antimicrobial drugs has emerged and spread at an alarming
rate, raising the prospect that many common diseases could
become prohibitively expensive or impossible to treat.27 The
bacterial infections that contribute most to human disease
are also those in which emerging resistance is of most
concern: diarrhoeal diseases such as dysentery, respiratory
tract infections, including pneumococcal pneumonia and
multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, sexually transmitted
infections such as gonorrhoea, and a host of hospitalacquired
infections that are notoriously difficult and
expensive to treat. Among the major infectious diseases, the
development of resistance to drugs commonly used to treat
malaria is of particular concern, as is the emerging resistance
to anti-HIV drugs. Most alarming of all are microbes such as
Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhi that have
accumulated resistance genes to virtually all currently
available drugs and have the potential to cause untreatable
infections, thus raising the spectre of a post-antibiotic era.
Even if the pharmaceutical industry were to step up efforts
to develop new drugs immediately, current trends suggest
that some diseases may have very few and, in some cases, no
effective therapies within the next 10 years.27 Moreover, if
current trends continue, many important medical and
surgical procedures, including cancer chemotherapy, bone
marrow and organ transplantation, and hip and other joint
replacements, could no longer be undertaken out of fear that
the associated compromise of immune function might place
patients at risk of acquiring a difficult to treat and ultimately
fatal infection. Opportunistic infections in AIDS patients
would likewise become an especially difficult challenge.
EVENTUALLY THESE MUTATIONS WILL GET OUT OF CONTROL—CULMINATING IN PLANETARY EXTINCTION.
South China Morning Post 96
((Hong Kong) January 4, 1996 SECTION: Pg. 15 HEADLINE: Leading the way to a cure for AIDS BYLINE: Kavita Daswani meets a scientist working on a super vaccine to fight AIDS and more deadly viruses yet to come, l/n)
Despite the importance of the discovery of the "facilitating" cell, it is not what Dr Ben-Abraham wants to talk about. There is a much more pressing medical crisis at hand - one he believes the world must be alerted to: the possibility of a virus deadlier than HIV. If this makes Dr Ben-Abraham sound like a prophet of doom, then he makes no apology for it. AIDS, the Ebola outbreak which killed more than 100 people in Africa last year, the flu epidemic that has now affected 200,000 in the former Soviet Union - they are all, according to Dr Ben-Abraham, the "tip of the iceberg". Two decades of intensive study and research in the field of virology have convinced him of one thing: in place of natural and man-made disasters or nuclear warfare, humanity could face extinction because of a single virus, deadlier than HIV. "An airborne virus is a lively, complex and dangerous organism," he said. "It can come from a rare animal or from anywhere and can mutate constantly. If there is no cure, it affects one person and then there is a chain reaction and it is unstoppable. It is a tragedy waiting to happen." That may sound like a far-fetched plot for a Hollywood film, but Dr Ben -Abraham said history has already proven his theory. Fifteen years ago, few could have predicted the impact of AIDS on the world. Ebola has had sporadic outbreaks over the past 20 years and the only way the deadly virus - which turns internal organs into liquid - could be contained was because it was killed before it had a chance to spread. Imagine, he says, if it was closer to home: an outbreak of that scale in London, New York or Hong Kong. It could happen anytime in the next 20 years - theoretically, it could happen tomorrow. The shock of the AIDS epidemic has prompted virus experts to admit "that something new is indeed happening and that the threat of a deadly viral outbreak is imminent", said Joshua Lederberg of the Rockefeller University in New York, at a recent conference. He added that the problem was "very serious and is getting worse". Dr Ben-Abraham said: "Nature isn't benign. The survival of the human species is not a preordained evolutionary programme. Abundant sources of genetic variation exist for viruses to learn how to mutate and evade the immune system." He cites the 1968 Hong Kong flu outbreak as an example of how viruses have outsmarted human intelligence. And as new "mega-cities" are being developed in the Third World and rainforests are destroyed, disease-carrying animals and insects are forced into areas of human habitation. "This raises the very real possibility that lethal, mysterious viruses would, for the first time, infect humanity at a large scale and imperil the survival of the human race," he said.
Disease surveillance is the best defense against disease
David L Heymann and Guénaël R Rodierthe, WHO's Executive Director for Communicable Diseases, Dec. 01, The Lancet, “Hot spots in a wired world: WHO surveillance of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases” http://www.3eme-cycle.ch/biologie/JCVillars06/S1%20Heymann/104_Lancet_Hot%20SpotsInAWiredWorld_2001.pdf
In the volatile new milieu of emerging, adapting, and highly mobile pathogens, the best defence is good infectious disease intelligence, on a global scale, gleaned through sensitive surveillance. Surveillance systems keep the world alert to changes in the infectious disease threat and provide the background data needed to detect an unusual event, whether involving an upsurge in cases of a well-known endemic disease, the appearance of a previously unknown pathogen, or an outbreak caused by the deliberate use of a biological agent to cause harm. Because susceptibility to infectious diseases and
the opportunities for infection rapidly increase with poverty, poverty remains the variable most frequently associated with the occurrence of infectious diseases.21 Not surprisingly, outbreaks of both newly identified diseases and well-known epidemic-prone diseases occur most frequently in countries that lack the epidemiological and laboratory
capacity to detect them quickly and contain their spread (figure 2). For this reason, continuing surveillance, supported by strengthening of national capacities, is further needed to keep the international community prepared to provide assistance, in
the interest of defending global health security, whenever needed.
SUB POINT B IS RE-REMERGING DISEASES- THE FLU
[MUTATION OF THE AVIAN FLU IS INEVITABLE—IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME UNTIL IT IS AIRBORNE.
Satish Chandra, Deputy National Security Advisor of India – Center for Strategic Decision Research, 2004
[Global Security: A broader Concept for the 21st Century, 5/7, http://www.csdr.org/2004book /chandra.htm]
If the possibility of the collapse of the thermohaline circulation system is alarming, the possibility of a human-to-human transmittable bird flu pandemic is a nightmare. What makes it so frightening is the fact that it could happen at any time and that we are ill prepared to face it. At current mortality rates, it could result in the sudden death of 15 to 20 percent of mankind. The most severe health crisis in recent years in terms of numbers of deaths was the 1918–1919 influenza epidemic, which in the space of one year caused an estimated 40 million deaths worldwide. Begun in Kansas in March 1918, the epidemic spread to Europe and then to India, Australia, and New Zealand. The virulence and mortality rate of the first wave of the disease, in the spring of 1918, was only slightly above normal levels but the second wave, which began in the fall of 1918, was extraordinarily deadly, with mortality rates of 5 to 20 percent above normal levels. It is believed that the fall strain of the virus came about through genetic mutation and that the genetic structure of the virus was a form of a swine and avian influenza strain. Since 1918, the world has seen several influenza outbreaks, most notably the 1957 Asian flu outbreak and the 1968 Hong Kong flu outbreak, each of which killed a million people. While WHO now has an Influenza Surveillance Program in place as well as an Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Plan, we still need to examine the possibility of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu becoming transmittable from human to human, the outcome of such a situation, and what must be done to address the possibility. Since the end of 2003, outbreaks of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian influenza, or bird flu, have occurred in eight Asian countries, resulting in the loss of 100 million poultry birds. The implications for human health are worrisome because of the extreme pathogenic nature of this virus—it has the capability to infect humans and cause severe illness, with mortality rates of 60 to 70 percent. It has already infected humans three times in the recent past: In 1997 and 2003 in Hong Kong and in 2004 in Vietnam and Thailand. So far the disease has been transmitted only to humans who came in contact with dead or diseased poultry—it has not yet mutated to being capable of human-to-human transmission. The Likelihood of a Pandemic Since the H5N1 strain has not been eliminated from its avian hosts, it is obviously endemic. The risk, therefore, that the virus could take on a new form that would make it capable of human-to- human transmission is considerable, especially because mass vaccinations of chickens, aimed at mitigating the disaster facing poultry farmers, has allowed the virus to continue to circulate among the vaccinated birds. It can thus linger indefinitely in poultry, making the gene mutation required to make it transmittable from human to human an even greater possibility. It could be said that there are three prerequisites for the start of a pandemic: 1) a new virus must emerge against which the general population has little or no immunity; 2) the new virus must be able to replicate in humans and cause disease; and 3) the new virus must be efficiently transmitted from one human to another. Dr. Anarji Asamoa Baah, Assistant Director General, Communicable Diseases, WHO, asserts that, regarding H5N1, the first two prerequisites have already been met, and it is known that the virus can become more transmittable via two mechanisms, “adaptive mutation” and “genetic re-assortment.” Dr. Baah has further contended that re-assortment of H5N1 with a human influenza virus can take place in humans without prior adaptation in other species such as swine. It is clear, therefore, that 1) the H5N1 virus will continue to circulate for a very long time in poultry birds; 2) the threat to public health will be there as long as the virus continues to circulate in poultry birds; 3) should the virus become transmittable from human to human, the consequences for human health worldwide, in the words of Dr. Baah, “could be devastating;” and 4) the world needs to be prepared to respond to the next influenza outbreak. During an Influenza Pandemic Preparedness meeting in Geneva in March 2004, the head of the World Health Organization warned, “We know another pandemic is inevitable. It is coming…we also know that we are unlikely to have enough drugs, vaccines, healthcare workers, and hospital capacity to cope in an ideal way.” On the basis of an epidemiological model project, WHO scientists predict that an influenza pandemic will result in 57 million to 132 million outpatient hospital visits, 1 million to 2.3 million admissions, and between 280,000 and 650,000 deaths in less than two years. The impact on poor nations would be much greater. But I submit that these projections are gross underestimates given the fact that the 1918–1919 influenza epidemic, with mortality rates of a maximum of 20 percent above normal level, caused as many as 40 million deaths. With mortality rates in excess of 60 percent, the H5N1 virus is bound to be much more deadly, particularly because in today’s world of air connectivity, the spread of H5N1 would be much more rapid than that of the 1918 influenza epidemic. Indeed, the death toll could run into hundreds of millions.
AVIAN BIRD FLU WILL KILL BILLIONS.
Satish Chandra, Center for Strategic Decision Research, 2004
[Global Security: A broader Concept for the 21st Century, May 7th http://www.csdr.org/2004book /chandra.htm]
This scenario, as frightening as it is, pales in comparison with what could overtake us by 2007 if the highly pathogenic form of bird flu “H5N1” becomes transmittable human to human; all it would take for this to happen is a simple gene shift in the bird flu virus, which could happen any day. In a globalized world linked by rapid air travel, the disease would spread like a raging forest fire. If it did, it would overwhelm our public health system, cripple our economies, and wipe out a billion people within the space of a few months—a 60 percent mortality rate is estimated.
SURVEILLANCE IS CRITICAL TO MONITOR ANIMAL TRANSFERRED PATHOGENS.
Paul Rincon, BBC News science reporter, 2/20/06, ("'Faster emergence' for diseases", http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4732924.stm)
New infectious diseases are now emerging at an exceptional rate, scientists have told a leading conference in St Louis, US. Humans are accumulating new pathogens at a rate of one per year, they said.
This meant that agencies and governments would have to work harder than ever before to keep on top of the threat, one expert told the BBC. Most of these new infectious diseases, such as avian influenza and HIV/Aids, are coming from other animals. "This accumulation of new pathogens has been going on for millennia - this is how we acquired TB, malaria, smallpox," said Professor Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University Of Edinburgh, UK. "But at the moment, this accumulation does seem to be happening very fast. "So it seems there is something special about modern times - these are good times for pathogens to be invading the human population." Professor Woolhouse has catalogued more than 1,400 different agents of disease in humans; and every year, scientists are discovering one or two new ones.
Some may have been around for a long time and have only just come to light. Others that have emerged recently are entirely new, such as HIV; the virus that causes Sars, and the agent of vCJD. The difference today, say researchers, is the way humans are interacting with other animals in their environment. Changes in land use through, for example, deforestation can bring humans into contact with new pathogens; and, likewise, agricultural changes, such as the use of exotic livestock. Other important drivers include global travel, global trade and hospitalisation. The fast rate at which pathogens are appearing means public health experts will need to work harder than ever to control the spread of emerging disease threats. "The sort of image I want to get away from is the famous statement from the 1960s when the US Surgeon General said, 'diseases were beat'," Professor Woolhouse told the BBC News website. "Pathogens are evolving ways to combat our control methods. The picture is changing and looks as if it will continue to. We're going to have to run as fast as we can to stay in the same place." He added: "We need surveillance. Surveillance in most parts of the world for infectious disease is really quite poor - particularly surveillance for infectious diseases in animals such as vermin like rats." Experts were speaking on the subject at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in the Missouri city of St Louis.
ADVANTAGE TWO: BIOTERRORISM
RISK OF A BIOTERROR ATTACK IS HIGH WITH THE WIDESPREAD OFMATERIALS, INFORMATION, AND RECRUITMENT IN ABUNDANCE.
Bruce jones – biosecurity nonststate actors & the need for global cooperation 10/1/06
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/action/showFullText?submitFullText=Full+Text+HTML&doi=10.1111%2Fj.1747-7093.2006.00016.x&cookieSet=1
Unfortunately, both the risk of a bioterror attack and the potential destruction such an attack could cause are significant—and rising.
In assessing the risk of a given type of attack, there are three ingredients to measure: the availability of the relevant materials (from small arms to "loose nukes"); the availability of know-how to overcome the obstacles to using those materials to effect an attack; and the existence of actors with the motive to use them. In the case of bioterrorism, all three ingredients are very much present.
First, there is no shortage of supply. The biological materials for potentially deadly attacks are tremendously widespread. By one estimate, there are more than 10,000 facilities worldwide that legally and legitimately possess materials that, if weaponized, could cause enormous loss of life, morbidity, and erosion of health. Many of these facilities are agricultural and commercial, not engaged in high-tech bioengineering or advanced processes that could reasonably be expected to come with detailed tracking of materials and effective security arrangements.
Second, there is no shortage of know-how. One of the great advantages of the biological and health industry is its widening base of scientists worldwide—an advantage that has an obvious downside, in the existence [in] of a large number of individuals whose knowledge can be tapped for nefarious purposes. Moreover, the technological know-how and materials for weaponizing several biological agents is increasingly available, even to individuals. In preparing background materials for the High-Level Panel, we were warned by some of the world's leading scientists that it would be only a matter of years before the tools required for weaponization were available through the Web. As we completed our work, some of these same scientists alerted us to the fact that they had been mistaken: materials are already available on the Web, often for as little as $50,000.
Third, there is no shortage of groups with motive—at least, as far as we know. Certainly, senior al-Qaeda officials have stated publicly and in captured correspondence between themselves their interest in obtaining nuclear, biological, and chemical materials for use in large-scale terrorist attacks. But the history of modern terrorism suggests that we should be every bit as concerned by groups we don't yet know about. Given the widespread availability and relatively easy accessibility of materials, and the accessibility of equipment and know-how to weaponize them, even fairly unsophisticated groups pose a threat. Indeed, as the science and the technology develops, we face the prospect that eventually small groups and even individuals will possess the technological ability to threaten even powerful states.
A BIOTERRORIST ATTACK WOULD RESULT IN EXTINCTION AS THE ATTACK CAN’T BE CONTAINED AND WILL SPREAD QUICKLY.
Richard Ochs, president of CWWG (Chemical Weapons Working Group), 2002 "biological weapons must be abolished immediately"
Of all the weapons of mass destruction, the genetically engineered biological weapons, many without a known cure or vaccine, are an extreme danger to the continued survival of life on earth. Any perceived military value or deterrence pales in comparison to the great risk these weapons pose just sitting in vials in laboratories.
While a "nuclear winter," resulting from a massive exchange of nuclear weapons, could also kill off most of life on earth and severely compromise the health of future generations, they are easier to control. Biological weapons, on the other hand, can get out of control very easily, as the recent anthrax attacks has demonstrated. There is no way to guarantee the security of these doomsday weapons because very tiny amounts can be stolen or accidentally released and then grow or be grown to horrendous proportions. The Black Death of the Middle Ages would be small in comparison to the potential damage bioweapons could cause.
Abolition of chemical weapons is less of a priority because, while they can also kill millions of people outright, their persistence in the environment would be less than nuclear or biological agents or more localized. Hence, chemical weapons would have a lesser effect on future generations of innocent people and the natural environment. Like the Holocaust, once a localized chemical extermination is over, it is over. With nuclear and biological weapons, the killing will probably never end. Radioactive elements last tens of thousands of years and will keep causing cancers virtually forever.
Potentially worse than that, bio-engineered agents by the hundreds with no known cure could wreck even greater calamity on the human race than could persistent radiation. AIDS and ebola viruses are just a small example of recently emerging plagues with no known cure or vaccine. Can we imagine hundreds of such plagues? HUMAN EXTINCTION IS NOW POSSIBLE.
LUCKILY, DISEASE SURVEILLANCE IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO TAP INTO THE PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM AS AN INTELLIGENCE RESOURCE IN ORDER TO PREVENT AND RAPIDLY RESPOND TO A POTENTIAL ATTACK.
PRNewswire, 8-4,-2005, Nexus (C-5)
"Better medical surveillance tools and stronger links between law enforcement and national health authorities are needed to help protect the world against attacks from terrorists using chemical or biological weapons," emergency preparedness specialist Michael J. Hopmeier told a recent conference on integrating intelligence, policing and health, co-hosted by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
"The public health system presents an enormous untapped resource for intelligence gathering and the protection of national security," said Hopmeier, President of Unconventional Concepts Inc., a Mary Esther, Florida- based engineering and scientific consulting firm specializing in crisis management and integrated federal/civilian disaster response.
"Beyond the roles in prevention and protection played by the public health sector, and their obvious implications for national security, there is also an enormous infrastructure for early warning detection of terrorist threats," Hopmeier said. "For that reason, public health agencies can contribute to both intelligence collection and national security
ADVANTAGE 3: Genocide
There’s a high risk of genocide in Africa
Glew and M.D. Hudson, School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, April 2007, “Gorillas in the midst: the impact of armed conflict on the conservation of protected areas in the sub-saharan Africa”, http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FORX%2FORX41_02%2FS0030605307001755a.pdf&code=8d016e8cd25fd970215d621ee092fd38
Conflict has also become increasingly severe, with the emergence of intense genocidal conflict in Sudan and Rwanda (Jennings, 2001). The majority of wars in sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. 92%of those in 2000) have been civil conflicts fought within the boundaries of a single sovereign state (State Failure, 2001). However, internal wars are no less capable of having international consequences than transboundary conflict. A common feature of civil war is the mass displacement of people, and if this involves movement across an international border, a significant number of the ecological consequences of the conflict may be displaced into the recipient country, as seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after the Rwandan genocide of 1994 (Elongo, 2000). Equally, the unpredictable and unstructured nature of civil war, with the frequent emergence of new belligerent groups and shifting alliances, promotes frequent and repeated population displacements and a disparate security situation at anything above the immediately local level (Hart &
Mwinyihali, 2001; Kalpers 2001a).
[F2]Disease Surveillance is key to detect and stop genocide
Lester Brewslow, Professor Emeritus, Health Services, UCLA School of Public Health, 2002, “Genocide”,
http://health.enotes.com/public-health-enyclopedia/genocide
[F2]Disease Surveillance is key to addressing Genocide
Brian M. Willis and Barry S. Levy, Brian Willis works with the CDC, Barry Levy is the past president of the American Public Health
Association, 8/2/2000, Recognizing the Public Health Impact of Genocide, http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/284/5/612.pdf
The Genocide outweighs—it is more than just a body count.
DAVID P. EISENMAN, an associate natural scientist at the RAND Corporation and an assistant professor for the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services UCLA, 2007, http://health.enotes.com/public-healthencyclopedia/ genocide [adit]
THUS WE OFFER THE FOLLOWING PLAN:
The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its public health assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa by fully funding the creation of disease surveillance laboratories in Sub-Saharan Africa under the authority of the Department of Defense.
OBSERVATION TWO: SOLVENCY
EMPIRICALLY, THE DOD HAS BEEN EFFECTIVE AT PREVENTING AND TREATING DISEASE OUTBREAKS IN AFRICA.
Patrick W. Kelley, M.D., Dr. P.H., Colonel and Director, Division of Preventive Medicine Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Institute of Medicine (Authoring organization), 2001, “Emerging Infectious Diseases from the Global to the Local Perspective”, p. 57, http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10084
An example of recent DOD involvement in Africa was the outbreak of Rift Valley fever in 1997–1998 in East Africa. Approximately 80,000 people ultimately contracted Rift Valley fever, resulting in hundreds of deaths. In addition to the direct toll on the human population, there was a tremendous toll on the animal population in this pastoral economy. Using its laboratory in Kenya, DOD was able to quickly assist with the initial epidemiological and entomological investigations. At the time that the outbreak surfaced Kenya had no laboratory capacity for the diagnosis of Rift Valley fever. Specimens had to be sent to either South Africa or CDC to make the diagnosis. Using resources at its laboratory in Cairo, DOD was able to quickly transfer technology for rapid diagnosis to Kenya so that the outbreak could be defined rapidly and locally. Experts in remote sensing also collected data to establish indicators that are evident at least 3 or 4 months before outbreaks. In the future this will enable the government to initiate immunizations for animals and thus prevent the amplification of the virus and its transmission to humans. DOD also provided access to the Rift Valley fever vaccine for at-risk laboratory workers in Kenya.
DOD LABORATORIES ARE CAPABLE OF STREAMLINING THE AFRICAN SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM, AND OFFER THE BEST TECHNOLOGY AND PERSONNEL TRAINING.
Patrick W. Kelley, M.D., Dr. P.H., Colonel and Director, Division of Preventive Medicine Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Institute of Medicine (Authoring organization), 2001, “Emerging Infectious Diseases from the Global to the Local Perspective”, p. 56, http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10084
A major asset is the DOD network of overseas laboratories in Egypt, Kenya, Thailand, Indonesia, and Peru. These are medical research and development laboratories that in some cases were established more than 50 years ago and that exist primarily for the purpose of product development. For example, the key studies conducted for the licensure of the hepatitis A and the Japanese encephalitis vaccines were done at these laboratories.
These laboratories have, in some instances, a biosafety level 3 capability. The laboratory in Cairo, Egypt, can if necessary, adapt to a biosafety level 4 capability. Although located in 5 countries, these laboratories have active research programs in about 31 countries; they have established extensive networks in their regions and have formal relationships with many ministries of health and the WHO.
The laboratories have tremendous depth. In almost every case they have expertise in virology, bacteriology, parasitology, other aspects of microbiology, veterinary medicine, and epidemiology. Although their primary purpose was to support product development, increasingly they are becoming involved with surveillance. In all, about 700 people work at these laboratories and are backed up by more than 800 more DOD scientists working on issues related to emerging infections.
The laboratories have additional assets: they are networked with state-of-the-art communications technologies and possess cutting-edge field diagnostic reagents that are field oriented, rapid, and invaluable in the response to emerging infectious diseases. In addition, the laboratories have access to special drugs and vaccines that might be of critical importance in regions with outbreaks of unusual pathogens.
US is key to disease surveillance—superior science/technology proves (H8)
Population Council, 3/96, The National Science and Technology Council on Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases,
Population and Development Review http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0098-
7921%28199603%2922%3A1%3C175%3ATNSATC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8
Thus the effort to build a global surveillance and response system is in accord with the national security and foreign policy goals of the United States. Moreover, leadership in global infectious disease surveillance and control is a natural role for the United States. American business leaders and scientists are in the forefront of the computer communications and biomedical research communications (both public and private sector) that provide the technical and scientific underpinning for disease surveillance. Furthermore, American scientists and public health professionals have being among the most important contributors to the international efforts to eradicate small pox
and polio.